Toyota to provide Subaru car maker with hybrid vehicle

Toyota to provide Subaru car maker with hybrid vehicle
technology: report

Japan's top automaker Toyota Motor will provide hybrid-vehicle
technology to Subaru-brand carmaker Fuji Heavy Industries,
helping it exploit the key North American market, a report said
Wednesday.

Toyota plans to supply its hybrid power system to Fuji Heavy,
which will use it to make hybrids a mainline product in the North
American market, which accounts for 35 percent of its group
sales, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

Fuji Heavy for its part is considering supplying to Toyota the
technology on lithium-ion batteries it has developed with
electronics maker NEC for use in hybrid vehicles, the economic
daily said without citing sources.

Working-level talks on the technical cooperation have already
been taking place, with Toyota president Fujio Cho and his Fuji
Heavy counterpart Kyoji Takenaka set to enter negotiations soon,
it said.

A Toyota spokesman said the automaker was "having talks with
various companies (over hybrid technology) but nothing has been
decided." He declined to disclose the names of these companies.
Hybrid vehicles have both a gasoline engine and an electric motor
which come into use depending on driving conditions, making them
much more economical and environmentally-friendly than
conventional petrol driven cars.

Toyota has pioneered the use of green technologies with its
Prius, the world's first mass-produced hybrid car.

U.S. auto giant General Motors, the top shareholder in Fuji
Heavy with a 20 percent stake, has formed a partnership with
German-US carmaker DaimlerChrysler to jointly develop hybrid
vehicle technology.

The Nihon Keizai said that the alliance was likely to focus on
technology for use in large vehicles rather than vehicles with
engine displacements of around three liters, Fuji Heavy's
strength.

Japan-auto-Toyota-FujiHeavy-company
AFP

GetAFP 2.10 -- FEB 2, 2005 10:54:05