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General Motors Co. said Wednesday it will stop making cars and engines in Australia by the end of 2017, with nearly 2,900 jobs to be lost, because of high production costs and competition. The decision could spell the end of car manufacturing in Australia as the industry will be too small for supporting businesses such as parts makers to remain economic. Toyota Motor Corp. announced it is reassessing its future in Australia. A union said 50,000 jobs in the auto industry are in jeopardy. GM’s Australian subsidiary Holden once dominated Australian auto sales, but lost market share to imported cars....

O'Brien Mitsubishi, based in Normal, IL, is offering something way outside the norm: an absurdly low lease price – the cheapest we've ever seen – for on an electric vehicle. AutoblogGreen reader Josh K. could hardly believe what he saw when driving by a rotating banner advertising the a Mitsubishi i-MiEV recently: $69 a month for 24 months. That compares with the official Mitsubishi lease program from last fall, which was $249 a month for three years. Yes, it sounds too good to be true. So we called the dealership and had the lease offering confirmed. Salesman Scott Lovett explained...

Dec. 7, 2012 – By Steven B. Krivit – Researchers from Toyota Central Research and Development Laboratories performed an independent replication of a Mitsubishi low-energy nuclear reaction transmutation experiment, according to a physicist from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries speaking at the American Nuclear Society LENR session on Nov. 14 in San Diego, Calif. The physicist, Yasuhiro Iwamura, told the ANS audience that the Toyota researchers confirmed that nuclear changes from one element to another took place without the use of high-energy nuclear physics. Most scientists who have not followed this field closely consider such profound claims inconceivable. Toyota used a LENR...

Assembly starts on Japan's next-generation fighter jet Work started on March 28 on a prototype of the nation's next-generation fighter jet, which will be produced entirely in Japan. The project, ordered by the Defense Ministry, is being carried out at a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. plant in Aichi Prefecture. Mitsubishi Heavy is producing the fuselage and is in charge of overall assembly. IHI Corp. is building the engine, Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. is manufacturing the wings, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. is responsible for cockpit equipment. The Defense Ministry plans to have the prototype, equipped with stealth and other state-of-the-art...

Missile info leak suspected in MHI cyber-attacks The Yomiuri Shimbun Information on a domestically developed air-to-ship missile may have been leaked in cyber-attacks on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., according to sources close to the case. The information on the Type 80 missile is suspected to have been leaked in one of the about 300,000 illegal accesses to the server installed at MHI's Nagoya Guidance and Propulsion Systems Works in Komaki, Aichi Prefecture, the sources said. The nation's largest comprehensive heavy machinery maker, however, denied any information had been compromised. "We haven't yet confirmed any data leak on our products and...

Cyber-attackers could have stolen defense contractor's passwords October 08, 2011 Passwords for servers at defense contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) may have been stolen during a wide-ranging cyber-attack. The Kobe Shipyard and Machinery Works, which builds submarines, and the Nagoya Guidance and Propulsion Systems Works, which makes missile-related products, were among installations compromised in the attack, which was reported to the Metropolitan Police Department on Sept. 30. In total, 45 servers and 38 personal computers at 11 of MHI's facilities were infected with viruses. An analysis of a virus used in the attack suggests the perpetrators used simplified Chinese...

Non-English Speakers May Be Behind M'bishi Heavy Cyberattacks Tokyo, Sept. 30 (Jiji Press)--The viruses used in the recent cyberattacks on Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. <7011> may have been created outside the English-speaking world, analyses by a computer security firm showed Friday. Simplified Chinese characters were used for remote manipulation of target servers and several simple misspellings were found in programs written in English, according to the company, which analyzed some of the viruses. Given those facts, it is suspected that someone that can understand Chinese but is not good at using English created the viruses, the company said. In...

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries bids goodbye to F2 aircraft TOYOYAMA, Aichi -- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) announced on Sept. 27 that production of the multirole fighter F2 would come to an end, bringing a conclusion to the aircraft's 16-year history. During a farewell ceremony held at the company's Komakiminami factory in Aichi Prefecture, President Hideaki Omiya handed over the company's last F2 fighter to the Ministry of Defense. Deployment of the next generation experimental fighter (FX) has been scheduled for 2016, but the government has been delaying the model's selection. The multirole, single-engine fighter aircraft produced for the Japan Air Self-Defense...

Missile and submarine secrets 'may have been stolen' in cyber attack on Japanese defence firm By Rachel Rickard Straus and Rob Waugh Last updated at 6:05 PM on 19th September 2011 Some of Japan’s most sensitive defence secrets have been targeted by hackers, who have gained access to up to 80 computers of its biggest defence contractor - in what appeared to be a coordinated attack. Contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd said today its submarine, missile and nuclear plant component factories had been targeted, according to a report. Some information could have been stolen in the first known cyber attack...

China’s vehicle manufacturer Foton is setting up an assembly plant in Kenya in what is set to heighten the battle between China and Western nations for business in Kenya. The Sh1.2 billion assembly plant is expected to churn out 10,000 units of prime movers, tippers, buses, pick-ups, and light commercial trucks per year, making it one of the biggest foreign direct investments by a Chinese company. Foton said it is setting up the plant to avoid paying a 25 per cent import duty on cars to allow in its low cost products putting it in a head-to-head battle with Japanese...

Crisis May Scuttle Japan Fighter March 16, 2011By David Axe Will the earthquake and tsunami, and the resulting economic pain, scuttle plans for the Shinshin stealthy fighter? The full implications for Japan of Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami, as well as the ongoing problems at the Fukushima nuclear plant, remain unclear. But an ambitious and likely pricey military programme could be one of the first political casualties as Tokyo weighs the cost of recovery. In the early 2000s the forerunner to the Japanese Defense Ministry began developing a new, stealthy fighter jet under the auspices of the Advanced Technologies Demonstrator...

Japan eyes procuring F-35 fighters; gives up on more F-2 jets Monday 08th November, 07:54 AM JST TOKYO — The Defense Ministry has set its sights on procuring the F-35 fighter as Japan’s main next-generation fighter aircraft for the Air Self-Defense Force, giving up on an earlier plan to buy more F-2 fighters, ministry and Self-Defense Forces sources said Sunday. The ministry plans to seek procurement costs for the F-35 in its budget request for fiscal 2012 and is slated to begin full-fledged arrangements for the procurement plan early next year through a selection committee to prepare for the budget...

By Bradley Perrett Japan is risking a rapid loss of fighter engineering skills, an official review of the industry warns, while urging the government to avoid fully importing combat aircraft. Estimates of future engineering effort starkly illustrate an unspoken argument for Japan to buy and develop advanced versions of the Eurofighter Typhoon, Boeing F-15 or Boeing F/A-18E/F to fill its requirement for 50 fighters. “An industrial base is difficult to rebuild once experienced engineers and mechanics leave the industry, so it is essential to keep it for future fighter development,” says the Commission on Reform of Fighter Production Technology Base....

UYUNI, Bolivia: In the rush to build the next generation of hybrid or electric cars, a sobering fact confronts both automakers and governments seeking to lower their reliance on foreign oil: almost half of the world's lithium, the mineral needed to power the vehicles, is found here in Bolivia - a country that may not be willing to surrender it so easily. Japanese and European companies are busily trying to strike deals to tap the resource, but a nationalist sentiment is building quickly in the government of President Evo Morales, an ardent critic of the United States who has already...

TOKYO - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is going ahead with its mid-sized regional jet — the first "made in Japan" passenger aircraft in three decades. The announcement from the company President Kazuo Tsukuda came Friday, a day after major Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways placed the first orders for the twin-engine aircraft that seats about 70 to 90 people. ANA ordered 15 of the jets from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. on Thursday for delivery from 2013, with an option for 10 more. Mitsubishi, a Japanese machinery maker, has been testing out the response to the jet — which would face tough...

Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America Introduces New Category of Large-Format Televisions with Groundbreaking Laser Technology Mitsubishi's Revolutionary Laser Television Raises Home Entertainment to a New Level LAS VEGAS--(Business Wire)--Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc. today announced the world premiere of the laser television category during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, unveiling a new large-format LaserTV that delivers as much as twice the color of current high-definition televisions. Mitsubishi has harnessed its worldwide leadership in precision laser technology to produce the first-ever laser-powered television, delivering a range of color never before seen in home entertainment. Precise and focused, the purity of...

U.S. ban forces Japan to modernize F-15 fighters 16:58 | 17/ 12/ 2007 TOKYO, December 17 (RIA Novosti) - Japan will be unable to purchases state-of-the-art U.S. fighter aircraft before 2010, and will prioritize instead the upgrading of the Air Force's 40 F-15 Eagle jets, a Defense Ministry source said on Monday. F-15 Eagle, an all-weather tactical fighter designed to gain and maintain air superiority in aerial combat, was developed for the U.S. Air Force, and first flew in July 1972. The source confirmed that there had been an indefinite postponement in the delivery of the next-generation U.S. fighter jets,...

Pratt & Whitney’s Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine has been selected to power the Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ), launching the first of several next-generation engine programmes promising to deliver the next leap in fuel efficiency for airliners. “We believe the [GTF] offers a technological breakthrough that will provide the best economy and performance for the Mitsubishi Regional Jet," said Kazuo Tsukuda, President, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., in a statement. The MRJ is a 70-seat to 90-seat airliner.

TOKYO, June 22, 2007 (AFP) - Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. said Friday it and France's Areva have jointly bid for a multi-million-dollar research and development project on a US nuclear fuel cycle program. The United States is set to resume building nuclear power plants after a gap of more than two decades amid growing concern about high oil prices and greenhouse gas emissions. Under the plan, Japan's top heavy machinery maker will mainly work on fast breeder reactors -- which are in part driven by plutonium fuel -- while Areva will design facilities to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, said...

For all the nonsense about the love affair between Americans and their cars, people seem to spend a whole lot of time and effort to avoid climbing into a car. Super Stop & Shop's Peapod provides home delivery of groceries. That eliminates one's weekly trip to the grocery store. Get the grocery list online, pick the items, and the food appears in the insulated box outside your house. People can go to Match, Jdate, EHarmony and Match.com to start dating without even heading to a bar. What happened to joining the ski club? What happened to taking night classes? Tennis,...