Toshiba Corporation announced on Tuesday that CEO Satoshi Sunakawa will resign as opposition to the Japanese group’s controversial restructuring plans grows. The company’s CEO Taro Shimata, a former Siemens executive, will be the company’s new chairman. These changes will take effect on Tuesday.
On the other hand, the Japanese company “Toyota Motors Corp.”
On Tuesday, Toyota announced that it was suspending production on 28 production lines at 14 plants across Japan. Supplier Kojima Industries suspects it was a cyber attack. The company manufactures metals, plastics and electronic components.
Toyota has already been plagued by chip shortages and delays related to the Covit-19 since last January. The strike comes at a time when Toyota is expected to boost production and offset lost production to meet growing demand for cars.
At the level of Japanese companies, the Japanese electronics company Panasonic Corp. Tesla, the new generation of American electric car batteries, has set a commercial launch date with the aim of lowering the price of electric cars. Panasonic said in a statement on Monday that large-scale production and licensing of new-generation batteries is scheduled for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024.
According to Bloomberg News, Panasonic has set up two additional production lines in addition to manufacturing facilities at its Wakayama plant in western Japan. It is noteworthy that Panasonic named the new generation batteries 6480, considering the dimensions of the new battery with a diameter of 46 mm and a height of 80 mm, while its capacity exceeds the capacity of the smaller 1865 and 2170 generations. Panasonic currently supplies the US company Tesla. This means that new battery-powered cars will require fewer cells and components, i.e. lower production costs.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla, described the new generation batteries as a “breakthrough” in electric car battery technology, allowing his company to produce and sell cars starting at $ 25,000. Tesla has asked Panasonic to start production as it later plans to produce its own batteries, while the Japanese company wants to sell a portion of its production to other electric car manufacturers.
Hirokazu Umeda, Panasonic’s chief financial officer, announced earlier this month that the company would like to build an additional product line for the 4680 battery, although he did not specify a date for starting work on the track.
Meanwhile, economic data released in Japan on Tuesday showed a slowdown in the pace of growth in the country’s manufacturing sector activity in February. Gibbon Bank’s Product Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 52.7 points last month in Japan from 55.4 points last month. A reading of the index above 50 points indicates the growth of the sector’s economic activity, and less than 50 points indicates a contraction in activity. The slowdown in the pace of growth since last September. Although this decline is generally small, manufacturing sector production recorded a decline for the first time in five months, consistently due to a shortage of raw materials and the effects of a large number of people affected by the growing corona virus. The sub-index of new orders rose significantly in February.