Ali
05-11-2005, 06:29 AM
May 11 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., the world's two largest carmakers, plan to set up a venture in the U.S. to build fuel-cell systems and engines to run vehicles without using gasoline, said three executives from the two companies.
The plan, dubbed ``Project Apollo,'' may begin with a U.S. research center and expand to a factory, the executives said, declining to give their names. Discussions for the project started in October and are part of Detroit-based GM's effort to produce commercially viable fuel-cell vehicles by 2010, they said.
``We have been studying alternative fuels for the last five years with GM,'' Toyota President Fujio Cho said at a Tokyo press conference yesterday, when asked about its collaboration with GM. ``If there is anything that the two companies can work on together, it would be good for Toyota and GM. That's the basic strategy,'' he said, without elaborating.
Toyota's sales of its fuel-efficient gas-electric Prius cars helped it earn net income of 291 billion yen ($2.8 billion) in the first three months of 2005, compared with GM's loss of $1.1 billion. A fuel-cell venture would tap a combined $20 billion the two carmakers set aside this year for capital expenditure and research, including studies of vehicles using alternative fuels.
The plan, dubbed ``Project Apollo,'' may begin with a U.S. research center and expand to a factory, the executives said, declining to give their names. Discussions for the project started in October and are part of Detroit-based GM's effort to produce commercially viable fuel-cell vehicles by 2010, they said.
``We have been studying alternative fuels for the last five years with GM,'' Toyota President Fujio Cho said at a Tokyo press conference yesterday, when asked about its collaboration with GM. ``If there is anything that the two companies can work on together, it would be good for Toyota and GM. That's the basic strategy,'' he said, without elaborating.
Toyota's sales of its fuel-efficient gas-electric Prius cars helped it earn net income of 291 billion yen ($2.8 billion) in the first three months of 2005, compared with GM's loss of $1.1 billion. A fuel-cell venture would tap a combined $20 billion the two carmakers set aside this year for capital expenditure and research, including studies of vehicles using alternative fuels.