Toyota to Take 5 Percent Stake in Mazda and Build Joint U.S. Plant
TOKYO — Toyota said on Friday that it was taking a 5 percent stake in Mazda, another Japanese automaker, and
that the companies would jointly build an assembly plant in the United States and would pool resources on new technologies.
“In the future, mobility won’t belong only to carmakers,” Mr. Toyoda said at a news conference announcing the Mazda stake, noting
that Silicon Valley was increasingly turning its gaze to the auto industry, looking to disrupt areas including design, manufacturing and retail distribution.
Although plans for that spending predated the election of President Trump, the announcement was widely seen as a response to Mr. Trump’s vows to promote American manufacturing, pushing back against countries like Japan
that have large trade surpluses with the United States.
Akio Toyoda, chief executive of Toyota, said in January that the carmaker would invest $10 billion in the United States over the next five years.
The alliance between Toyota and Mazda represents a small
but significant step in the consolidation of the Japanese car industry, where a half-dozen producers compete for customers and capital.
In an era of soaring development costs and unsettling technological shifts — especially the emergence of battery-powered
and self-driving cars — many smaller producers fear they lack the resources required to keep up.
Even Toyota, one of the world’s largest producers of vehicles, with an output of 10 million units
a year, has been accused by some critics of falling behind in research and development.