Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Toshiba Expands In Houston For Electric Vehicle Effort

Toshiba Corporation said this morning that it is expanding manufacturing capacity at its plant in Houston, Texas, as a result of a major contract win from Ford Motor Company. Toshiba said the plant expansion will go towards production of high-performance drive motors for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and electric vehicles (EVs). The plant will be the first, overseas manufacturing location for the hybrid propulsion motors, which are currently only producted in Japan. Toshiba did not say how the expansion would affect employment in the location, but said it would begin construction in January 2011 at the Houston site, with production to begin in 2012.