Subaru car maker Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., 21 percent owned by General Motors, plans to increase production capacity at its US plant from mid-year to make a new car-pickup truck, Bloomberg News said.
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Fuji Heavy will raise capacity at the Subaru-Isuzu Automotive plant in Indiana to 120,000 from 100,000 units a year to make the Baja, which was released in January, Bloomberg said.
The expansion is part of the car maker’s five-year plan, spokesman Shinichi Murata told Bloomberg News.
Bloomberg added that the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported that Fuji Heavy spent about 5 billion yen ($US38 million) to expand its welding and jig lines. The company declined to comment to Bloomberg on the figure.
Subaru took about one percent of the U.S. market last year, Bloomberg News said, as sales rose eight percent to almost 186,000 units.
The company has set a goal of doubling that share in the future by using its ties to General Motors to strengthen US dealerships, the news agency added.
