Mitsubishi shares jump on report of increasing electric-car output

Mitsubishi Motors Corp shares jumped 7.3 percent to a 3-month high today after Japan’s Nikkei business daily published a report saying that the automaker will double its annual production capacity target for electric-cars by 2012.

Nikkei said that Mitsubishi is working to build up to 20,000 units of it i MiEV electric-cars by 2012 and will more than double the output of lithium-ion batteries.

Mitsubishi will begin selling it’s i MiEV electric car to corporate customers in Japan starting July. President Osamu Masuko, who is actually chauffeured around in i MiEV daily, said that production will double to 4,000 to 5,000 units in the second year of the i MiEV exports, hitting 30,000 to 50,000 units by the middle of the decade.

– By: Kap Shah

Source: Reuters