Japan’s Boshoku Corporation and Tsusho Corporation have announced that they would invest around R280-million in setting up a joint-venture facility in Umbogintwini, near Durban, to produce seats and door-trim panels for Toyota South Africa (TSA). Boshoku will hold 85% of the venture, and Tsusho 15%. The joint venture will take over the seat and door-trim business currently operated by TSA, with production starting in April next year. This new development is due to the substantial increases in TSA’s production capacity
 

South African industrial and automotive group Imperial Holdings expected annual headline earnings per share to increase by up to 27%.Imperial said headline EPS, which excludes non-trading, capital and certain extraordinary items, is expected to increase by 22% to 27%, while earnings per share are seen 44% to 49% higher."The higher increase in earnings per share relative to headline earnings per share resulted mainly from profits on the sale of businesses and shares in an associate company," Imperial said in a statement.
 

South African new vehicle sales soared in August to a monthly record of 53 229, the latest set of data to show that demand remains red hot in the continent's largest economy. The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa said on Friday that new vehicle sales were up over 29% compared to August last year and 13,7% percent over the previous month.

Nissan Motor Co Ltd, announced that it has begun operations at its newly constructed Nissan Advanced Crash Laboratory (NACL) located at the company's Oppama Proving Ground in Yokosuka City, 50 kilometers southwest of Tokyo. The 40,000-square-meter, state-of-the-art laboratory will be used for testing safety performance in vehicle-to-vehicle crashes and occupant protection performance in rollover accidents.
 

A third Chinese carmaker, Great Wall Automobile, plans to start assembling cars in Russia, rivalling South Korean and Japanese producers already operating on the fast-growing market. The company plans to produce sport utility vehicles and target the same segment as the South Korean SsangYong models that Russian holding company Severstal-Avto is due to assemble, Vedomosti business daily said.
 

Bosch today announced that it will continue expanding its airbag safety systems with the introduction of the airbag electronic control unit (ECU), Airbag 10, set to be released to OEM customers in 2007. This latest generation ECU will be able to process data much faster, enabling the integration of additional safety functions to further offer safety to all vehicle occupants.Airbag 10 is suitable for all vehicle classes -- from subcompact to luxury sedan.

 

Chrysler Group's Tom LaSorda told an automotive industry audience that in order to overcome negative economic issues, his company is redefining the OEM-supplier relationship model. LaSorda, who is currently Chief Operating Officer and becomes President and CEO on September 1, explained that an essential pillar of Chrysler Group's unique approach is to build long-term relationships with key suppliers.
 

Delphi Corporation has created a new skin for instrument panels, consoles and other vehicle interior surfaces, using breakthrough design and process technology”, according to a company statement. The so-called ‘slush cast thermoplastic polyolefin (TPO) skin’ is claimed to give vehicle cabins a luxurious look and feel at a substantially lower cost than traditional sprayed urethane technology.

 

Ford Motor Co's Volvo Cars division plans to lay off up to 1,500 workers, or 5 percent of its global work force this year, part of an effort to cut costs by more than $130 million, a company spokesman told Reuters. Volvo, purchased by Ford in 1999, has been hit hard by a weak U.S. dollar and strong competition in the U.S. market, Volvo spokesman Olle Axelsson said. Axelsson said the company will cut between 1,000 and 1,500 jobs to achieve a target of $131 million in cost savings. He was unable to lay out a time frame for the goal.
 

Aston Martin has driven itself to an operating profit - the first since the early 1960s.Chief executive Ulrich Bez, said Ford's fiscal discipline has proved that the company is capable of generating an operating profit. The profits came in the first and second quarters this year. "Lots of car companies went insolvent and disappeared," Bez said. "Aston Martin has always come back, and now we are really alive."
 

Shares of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, the maker of Subaru-brand vehicles, rose as much as 4.4 percent after the company said it's aiming to sell an electric minicar in Japan as early as 2009. The carmaker said it will make its first foray into battery-powered autos. The R1e electric vehicle, powered by a lithium-ion battery developed with NEC Corp, is designed to run 200 kilometers (124 miles) on a single charge. Its body will be based on a gasoline-powered R1 minicar with a 0.66-liter capacity engine.

Nissan Motor Co Ltd could merge some of its activities with sister company Renault SA, Nissan's chief operating officer said in a newspaper interview printed on Tuesday. "There won't be any merger at group level, but lots of things are conceivable at the level of subsidiaries," Toshiyuki Shiga told Germany's Boersen-Zeitung. He cited auto finance and logistics as possible areas where a combination could make sense and said a cross-border team was working on such issues.

German car-maker BMW is planning a "baby" Rolls-Royce that would go on sale at around quarter-of-a-million euros (US$311,000), the company's development chief Burkhard Goeschel said in an interview. The model would be smaller than the Phantom limousine, the only model currently produced under the Rolls-Royce name, and would not appear on the market before 2010.

Toyota Motor Corp, Japan's biggest automaker, plans to nearly double production capacity at its plant in South Africa by 2007 as part of a strategy to expand overseas, a newspaper reported Saturday. The plant, operated by the subsidiary Toyota South Africa Motors, will raise its output capacity to 200,000 vehicles a year, from its current level of 110,000 vehicles, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said without citing a source.

Spartan Chassis, a subsidiary of Spartan Motors Inc, is carrying on its reputation for innovation by introducing the Full Air Front Suspension System on their fire rescue vehicles today at the Fire-Rescue International Conference in Denver, Colorado. "The Full Air Front Suspension System not only improves the performance and maneuverability of our fire rescue cabs and chassis, it also adds features critical to safe vehicle operation," reports Richard Schalter, president of Spartan Chassis.

Magna International, one of the world's biggest auto parts suppliers, reported a higher second-quarter profit on Wednesday but said full-year earnings will not match last year's because of general weakness in the automotive industry. Magna said weak automotive production, price concessions, higher commodity costs and economic uncertainty will all hinder its performance. It also scaled back its revenue targets for the remainder of the year.
 

South African automotive parts group Tiger Wheels (Tiwheel) said it had bought US alloy wheel maker Warsaw for $24-million in a bid to expand in the US. Tiwheel said the acquisition was made by its German unit, ATS Beteiligungs GmBH, with effect from July 1. Warsaw, based in Kentucky, manufactures and sells larger-diameter auto alloy wheels."The acquisition provides the group with the opportunity to entrench its footprint in the US original equipment market," Tiwheel said in a statement.

Tata, the Indian conglomerate and one-time MG Rover partner, is developing plans for what will be the world's cheapest car. To be launched in 2008, the "people's car" will cost just 100,000 rupees (£1,300) and is set to become the Model T Ford for the 21st century. The vehicle will be aimed at the Indian market where car ownership is low. Tata hopes to price the car cheaply enough to tempt people off their bicycles and motorcycles and on to four wheels.

Three major automobile manufacturers, Honda Motor Co Ltd, General Motors Corp and BMW Corp, are developing cooperative technologies for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, according to a published report. Fuel cells produce electricity through a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, leaving water as the only by-product. Unlike hybrid gasoline-electric engines they don't emit pollutants.