Japanese car giant Toyota Motor Corp plans to raise its global output to near 10 million units next year, out-distancing its rival General Motors Corp of the US, a news report said yesterday.
Toyota now expects its group's global production to expand to some 9.9 million vehicles next year, about 500,000 units more than the projection for the current year, the Nikkei Shimbun newspaper said.
The expansion is mainly due to expectations of continued robust sales in China, the Middle East and other emerging economies, the business daily said.
Toyota is expected to outdo General Motors in output this year as the carmaker steps up production overseas, and the gap is likely to widen next year, it said.
Toyota projects its global output for this year will climb by 4 percent year on year to 9.42 million cars, while General Motors earlier this month announced a production forecast of a 1 percent gain to 9.26 million units.
As the result, the Japanese company is likely to become the world's No. 1 carmaker in terms of production volume for the first time.
Toyota's overseas output, excluding group firms, is likely to grow more than 5 percent next year from 4.2 million units projected for the current year, exceeding its domestic production, Nikkei said.
On the sales front, Toyota is neck-and-neck with General Motors for the rank of the world's top selling automaker.
Toyota overtook GM in the first quarter in terms of global sales and remained in the pole position for the first half of the year, but GM regained its lead for the nine months to September.
While Toyota is expanding its overseas production facilities, GM has been laying off workers and shuttering factories to try to reverse losses that hit US$2 billion last year.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS