World

Japan Automakers Look Ahead

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 20, 1999 / 11:18 AM EDT / CBS

The 1990s have been a decade of tumbling profits for Japanese automakers. But amid the chrome and choreography of the 1999 Tokyo auto show, it's clear how designers are thinking about the future, reports CBS News Correspondent Barry Petersen.

Cars are shrinking faster than corporate profits and for a look at what's ahead for the new millennium, NissanÂ's prototype Hypermini is barely large enough for two passengers.

There is more coming in the future, including hardtops that fold away to make an instant convertible, or a sure cure for restless kids in a traffic jam: a built-in theater in the backseat.

But even as carmakers show off the gleaming new models of today and tomorrow, they are also displaying a string of corporate tie-ins and mergers that link a variety of nameplates from across the world.

With the Asian economic crisis finally over, the automakers are clearly set on making their presence felt at the show, which previewed to the media Wednesday ahead of its opening to the public Saturday.

Nowhere were the recent global alignments in the auto industry clearer than at the Nissan Motor Co. booth, where Carlos Ghosn, the new executive sent by Renault SA of France, spoke of a Â"renaissanceÂ" at the ailing Japanese automaker. Renault bought a 37 percent stake in Nissan this year.

This week, Nissan announced a series of cost-slashing moves, including closing down three assembly plants, cutting the number of suppliers by half and trimming the work force by 14 percent.

Â"Renaissance symbolizes Nissan's rebirth,Â" Ghosn said in slow Japanese. Â"Nissan will change into a younger, dynamic and aggressive company.Â"

Nissan AXY 4-seater concept vehicle.

His speech was simultaneously translated into French and English and delivered through earphones distributed to the packed crowd. The Brazil-born Ghosn only started studying Japanese this year.

Renault officials say the alliance with Nissan will help push their brand in Japan, a notoriously difficult market where Renault had been a relative unknown.

By 2002, the two carmakers will have vehicles that share the same basic part called platforms a move that will save huge costs in manufacturing, as well as development. By 2003, Nissan's European lineup will be totally replaced.

Japan's No. 1 automaker, Toyota Motor Corp. also put an alliance, one with General Motors Corp., at the center of its display.

The two automakers, which have had a cooperative relationship for about 20 years, said they had made major progress in working together on the new ecological technologies called hybrid and fuel cell.

Hybrids combine an electric motor with a gasoline engine to burn fuel more efficietly, offering far better gas mileage than regular cars. Cars that run on fuel cells rely on chemical reactions for energy and spew virtually no pollution into the air.

GM President G. Richard Wagoner said that the technological cooperation with Toyota covers more than a dozen projects.

Â"The progress has been great and the prospects for future advances are even greater,Â" Wagoner said.