Mazda Motor Corp plans to leave its joint venture with Ford Motor Co and stop building cars in the US, the Nikkei Shimbun financial daily reported yesterday.
Mazda and Ford operate the AutoAlliance International (AAI) plant in Michigan as a 50-50 partnership. Citing unnamed company sources, the Nikkei said Mazda is considering selling its stake to Ford as the Japanese automaker tries to restructure its global production.
Mazda cars sold in the US will be shipped from Japan and Mexico starting in about 2013, according to the Nikkei.
In response, Mazda issued a short statement saying the report was not based on information it had released.
“Mazda and Ford are jointly studying various possibilities for AAI and we have nothing to announce at this time,” Mazda said. “We do not comment on speculation.”
The plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, manufactures the Mazda6 midsize sedan and the Ford Mustang. It employs about 1,700 workers, according to Ford.
The US automaker has essentially agreed to maintain current worker levels by expanding the models it builds at the facility, Nikkei said.
The two companies loosened their longtime auto alliance last year when Ford cuts its stake in Mazda from 11 percent to 3.5 percent. At the time, Mazda president Takashi Yamanouchi said that the two companies would continue to cooperate through joint ventures and technology exchanges.
Mazda’s latest financial results revealed tough times for the Hiroshima-based company.
Its net losses swelled to ¥60 billion (US$742 million) in the fiscal year ended on March 31, from ¥6.5 billion the previous year. The company blamed a persistently strong yen and lackluster sales in Japan, as well as the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that disrupted auto production.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy