Tokyo, February 6, 2012 – Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) announced it has made a decision that it will not allocate a new model at its subsidiary European production site Netherlands Car B.V. (NedCar) for production from 2013 and beyond.
NedCar currently produces Colt and Outlander models designated for sales in MMC’s European market. However, in December 2010, MMC had made decisions regarding future treatment of NedCar’s production operation. Specifically:
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To terminate the local production operation of Colt at the end of 2012.
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KD production of Outlander will be maintained until the end of 2012, but whether a replacement model to be allocated for production from 2013 and beyond or not is yet to be determined.
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To further examine measures which would enable production operation at NedCar to continue from 2013 and beyond.
Based on the decision, MMC, together with the stakeholders including NedCar management and its labour union, its work council, as well as the Dutch government, had proceeded until today examining measures for the continuation of production operation at NedCar. However, due to the wildly fluctuating operating environment which automobile manufacturers currently face, MMC could not come up with a reasonable solution to utilise NedCar among MMC’s global production operation structure and thus MMC has concluded it is not viable to allocate a new production model at NedCar.
Europe is and will continue to be an important market for MMC and production and delivery of models for Europe from Japan and Thailand will continue; thus MMC’s model mix and after-service structure will not change at all.
The status of NedCar from 2013 and beyond is yet to be decided, and talks among those concerned are to commence from hereon.
Outline of Netherlands Car B. V.
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Location: Born, Limburg, the Netherlands
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Capitalisation: EUR 250,012,000
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Shareholder: MMC group 100%
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Board members: Chairman & CEO: Mr. Tetsuro Miki President & COO: Mr. Joost Govaarts
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Number of employees: approx. 1,500
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Corporate history:
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Started as a three-way joint venture in 1991 through MMC, Volvo, and the Dutch government. MMC became the sole shareholder when it bought all the remaining shares from its partners in March of 2001.
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NedCar produced MMC’s Carisma from 1995, then afterwards the Space Star. Currently it produces the European-market Colt and Outlander. Local parts procurement is 85% for the Colt, and 20% for the Outlander.
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NedCar has produced a cumulative 1.1 million MMC vehicles to the present time.
