Toshiba, Volkswagen join hands to develop electric vehicles

Feb 13 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Toshiba Corp. said Friday it and German carmaker Volkswagen AG have signed a letter of intent to cooperate in developing Volkswagen's next-generation electric vehicles.

Under the deal signed Thursday by Volkswagen Chairman Martin Winterkorn and Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida in Wolfsburg, Germany, the two firms will jointly develop electric drive units and the accompanying power electronics for Volkswagen's planned New Small Family series.

"I am convinced that this will be a major step forward toward the development of series production electric vehicles for our customers," Winterkorn said in a statement.

Winterkorn said Volkswagen aims to be the first manufacturer to provide an emissions-free, affordable and safe large-scale production electric vehicle.

Nishida said, "The combined know-how of the two international technology groups Volkswagen and Toshiba will be an important step toward the drive technologies of tomorrow." Toshiba has provided Japanese bus and truck maker Hino Motors Ltd. with motors for gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles and plans to build a plant in Niigata Prefecture to produce new batteries for electric vehicles.

Toshiba may be willing to take advantage of the partnership with Volkswagen for expanding the range of its customer automakers, industry sources said.

Volkswagen has lagged behind Japanese carmakers in developing electric vehicles and intends to utilize the cooperation with Toshiba to catch up with their rivals, they said.

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