Hino, Mitsubishi Fuso sign merger deal

Hino and Mitsubishi Fuso will join forces for survival with the support of their respective parents, Toyota Motor Corp. and Daimler Truck AG, at a time when commercial vehicle makers are stepping up the development of electrification and self-driving technologies.

Japan's commercial vehicle industry will realign into two blocs: the Hino-Mitsubishi Fuso coalition and a bloc comprising Isuzu Motors Ltd. and its subsidiary UD Trucks Corp.

Toyota and Daimler Truck will set up a holding company to control Hino and Mitsubishi Fuso. The holding company will be headed by Mitsubishi Fuso CEO Karl Deppen.

Both Toyota and Daimler Truck plan to hold a 25 per cent stake each in the new company, with the proportion of voting rights standing at 19.9 per cent for Toyota and 26.7 per cent for Daimler Truck to conform with competition laws.

Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Deppen emphasised the need for large investments in electrification and other technologies in the face of fierce competition from makers from emerging economies.

"In our industry, scale matters," he said, adding, "The Japanese market cannot support so many commercial vehicle manufacturers."

Toyota CEO Koji Sato said that securing a business scale necessary to compete in the world will lead to an increase in speed to develop technologies and an improvement in production efficiency.

Isuzu and UD Trucks together accounted for 51 per cent of all trucks and buses sold by four major makers in Japan in 2024, compared with the remaining 49 per cent by Hino and Mitsubishi Fuso, according to the Japan Automobile Dealers Association.

In May 2023, Hino and Mitsubishi Fuso agreed to integrate their operations in 2024. However, they postponed the merger in February 2024, partly due to Hino's data falsification scandal. They signed the merger agreement after Hino reached a settlement with US authorities over the scandal earlier this year.

 [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]