Re: Elvin: Any clue when the 115 TLDI's will be available from Nissan/Tohatsu?
The British Tohatsu distributor started the hype, but they will not see any of the new models until we do. The new plant is owned by a joint company with two stockholders...Tohatsu and Mercury. This third company own's the land, building and some machinery, but Tohatsu leases all of that back and owns all designs and production. Then Tohatsu sells x number of engines to Mercury. With Mercury's history of erratic business practice's Tohatsu would not invest in expanding it's production capacity for them without making Mercury partially responsible<br />for the costs. Keep in mind that Mercury has been buying engines from Tohatsu for over ten years. But, with Tohatsu now agreeing to provide them with most, if not all of their engines under 30 hp, thats a huge jump in unit production. Also, Tohatsu has been providing and will continue to produce some model engines for Mercury above 30 hp...So far those have all been for the non-U.S. market, but that may very well change shortly. <br /><br />The global market for outboards is just like everything else today...subject to cost-benefit/production-benefits. On any given day relationships are created and dissolved with little or no thought as to national impact on jobs or balance of trade. Today, Mercury is sleeping with Tohatsu. Tomorrow it will be the Chinese. As long as the French are not producing engines for them I don't think it makes much difference. But, I don't think we need to worry too much about the French at this point...They have most of their manufacturing capability tied up producing white surrender flags.
