The Japanese car manufacturer Mitsubishi Motor apparently wants to hire the Taiwanese electronics group Foxconn to produce its electric vehicles. This is reported by various Japanese media, citing group circles. In this way, Mitsubishi primarily wants to reduce his production costs. In addition, the agreement should shorten the development, production and delivery times. The Foxconn Group, which has primarily become known as the manufacturer of Apple’s iPhones, has been trying to gain foot in the market for electric cars for some time. According to the reports, details on the plans should be announced in a few weeks at the earliest. The CEO of Foxconn, Young Liu, said last week during an analyst conference that he expected a automotive mandate to sign with a Japanese customer within a few months. The share prices of the two companies hardly reacted to the reports. Mitsubishi’s share lost 1.3 percent in a weak market environment on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The Hon Hai Technology Group’s share certificates, as Foxconn officially operates, gave 0.6 percent in Taipeh. Liu had also said that his company had addressed the two Japanese manufacturers Nissan and Honda Motor Co. for potential cooperations. The two car companies had explored a merger in winter, also in order to get together faster together in the development of electric cars. However, the talks were broken off again in February. In particular, the stumbling Nissan group is now looking for new financially strong partners. The major shareholder Renault has been trying to sell his participation of 35 percent for some time. According to Foxconn, Foxconn had already expressed interest. Nissan, on the other hand, holds a third of the shares in Mitsubishi. More on the topic of the plans of Foxconn and Mitsubishi, this could be heralded a revolution in the auto industry and become a next coup for the maker in Taiwan. On behalf of large electronics companies such as Apple, Google and Nintendo smartphones, tablets and game consoles, Foxconn produces their own factories for the products they designed. With a similar concept, the contract -ready Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has become the most important supplier in the global chip industry. In contrast, the concept is not yet common in car production. However, the cheap new manufacturers from China and the high costs for building up new manufacturing lines could now change that.
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