Foxconn to Assemble Electric Cars for Japanese Brand, and It Won’t Be Nissan

Foxconn officials recently said the Taiwanese contract electronics manufacturer would announce a partnership with a Japanese automaker in the next couple of months. Although rumors had linked Foxconn to Nissan, the company’s first EV client turned out to be Mitsubishi Motors.

Image source: Foxconn

At least, Bloomberg, citing its own sources, reports that Foxconn will begin producing vehicles for Mitsubishi at its Taiwan production facilities. It is not yet clear when production of electric vehicles for this Japanese customer will begin, but the first cars assembled under the contract will be destined for the Australian and New Zealand markets.

Foxconn has been trying to gain a foothold in the contract electric vehicle assembly market for several years now, but apart from releasing a limited range of models under the Foxtron brand in its native Taiwan, this industrial giant cannot boast of any particular success in this area. The company bought a plant in Ohio from the bankrupt Lordstown Motors, where it planned to produce electric pickups for it, but now the fate of the site is in question, since a second potential client, the developer of electric vehicles Fisker, has filed for bankruptcy.

By the way, Mitsubishi Motors has also been in a less than enviable financial position for years and is part of an alliance with Nissan Motor, so the former’s cooperation with Foxconn does not yet exclude further cooperation with the latter, if the need arises. At one time, Mitsubishi promoted the compact i-MiEV electric car to the global market, but it was too expensive and not very practical, so it was not popular. What models Foxconn will produce for this brand has not yet been specified.