Earlier in May, we told you about a report concerning Mazda’s plans to discontinue production of its Mazda6 mid-size model at its joint-venture plant with Ford in Michigan. Today, new reports from both Japan and the U.S. are claiming that Mazda Motors will dissolve its 50-50 joint venture with Ford and stop building cars in the USA by 2013, with the Japanese company already in talks with the Detroit automaker to sell its stake in their car production venture Auto Alliance International [AAI].
“Dissolving the joint venture is one measure that the two companies are discussing,” a person familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. The Nikkei business daily reported on its website that Mazda will discontinue U.S. production of the Mazda6 by 2013 with its successor to be imported to the States from Japan.
Responding to the reports, Mazda issued this press statement: “Mazda and Ford are jointly studying various possibilities for AAI, and we have nothing to announce at this time. We do not comment on speculation.”
The Japanese company is currently working to restructure its global production system and the 50-50 joint venture production facility with Ford is proving to be a money-losing operation for Mazda. The annual production capacity of the Michigan assembly plant is 240,000 vehicles split between Ford and Mazda, but the Japanese automaker made only around 45,000 Mazda6s in the past year.
