Mitsubishi Motors to slash vehicle platforms to 6 from 14
(AP)
Updated: 2006-09-04 10:32 Troubled Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors
Corp. plans to reduce its number of structural templates for the vehicles it
produces to six from the current level of 14 in a move to cut costs, a newspaper
reported Monday.
Each of these templates, called a platform, costs tens of billions of yen
(hundreds of millions of dollars) to develop, and the reduction also was
expected to shorten the time needed to role out new models, the Nihon Keizai
business daily said.
Mitsubishi Motors, Japan's fourth-largest automaker, currently uses four
separate platforms for its mini-vehicle lineup alone, and plans to consolidate
that into one platform, the newspaper said.
The Tokyo-based company is racing to cut costs as it fights years of red ink
brought on by a recall scandal several years ago.
Last month, Mitsubishi Motors said it narrowed its losses for the April-June
quarter to 15.1 billion yen ($130 million; euro101.4 million) for the first
fiscal quarter, an improvement from the 21.6 billion yen loss racked up the
previous year.
Mitsubishi Motors _ which has booked three straight fiscal years of red ink _
kept unchanged its forecast to return to profitability for the full fiscal year
ending March 2007, at an 8 billion yen ($70 million; euro55 million) profit.
Money-losing Mitsubishi Motors is the exception among Japanese automakers,
with Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., reporting stellar results. The
reputation of the Japanese for delivering good mileage has proved a boon amid
soaring oil prices, especially in North America, where the companies are
boosting market share.
In 2000, Mitsubishi Motors acknowledged it had been systematically hiding
auto defects from authorities for more than two decades. The automaker announced
a spate of recalls but disclosed in 2004 it had failed to come clean in 2000 and
had more concealed defects.
|
