Toyota and Fuji Heavy go for deeper integration

Toyota is quickly beginning to leverage the majority block of shares it holds in Subaru parent company, Fuji Heavy Industries. A Japanese newspaper is reporting that a Fuji Heavy production plant in Indiana will be tapped to produce 100,000 Toyota vehicles beginning in 2007. Toyota's pres Katsuaki Watanabe and Fuji Heavy pres Kyoji Takenaka will meet in early December for the first time to iron out the arrangement.
The relationship between these two companies, however, is a two-way street. Toyota, for its part, will be supplying Fuji Heavy with hybrid systems and help train the acquired company's engineers in the art of hybrid technology. Toyota may even absorb a few Fuji Heavy engineers in its hybrid program, perhaps to further develop Subaru's turbo parallel hybrid system that marries a thin 10-kW electric motor with the company's 2.0L turbo-four.

Maybe we weren't paying attention before but for all the time that GM owned its stake in Fuji Heavy had we ever seen this level of cooperation and sharing between the two companies? Of course, the last thing GM would need right now is more production capacity, but a turbo-hybrid would've been a useful component.

[via Motor Trend and Green Car Congress]