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TOKYO — Mitsubishi Motors on Friday posted a surprise operating loss in the third quarter, its worst quarterly performance in more than three years, hurt by falling sales in China, Japan and Southeast Asia, as well as a stronger yen. The carmaker posted an operating loss of 6.6 billion yen ($60.2 million) for the October-December quarter, widely missing an average forecast for a profit of 11.6 billion yen, based on analyst estimates compiled by Refinitiv. It was the firm's biggest loss since the July-September 2016 quarter, when a mileage cheating scandal sapped profits. However, Mitsubishi stuck to an earlier forecast for a 73% drop in full-year operating profit to 30 billion yen in the fiscal year ending in March. The automaker's net loss for the quarter just ended came in at 14.4 billion yen. The fall in quarterly sales was worst in China and at home, while sales also slipped in ASEAN countries, traditionally a stronghold, leading to a 16% fall in global vehicle sales to 320,000 units. The automaker also said it would keep some of its offices in China closed through Feb. 9, as a new coronavirus spreads throughout the country and beyond. The automaking alliance of Mitsubishi, Renault and Nissan on Thursday said they had "no other option" but to drastically improve their joint operations to remain competitive in the fast-changing global auto industry.

Japanese badminton star Kento Momota has been given the all clear in a health checkup after being involved in a car accident in Malaysia.

Momota's club, NTT East, said on Friday that medical exams concluded that he did not have broken bones or internal organ damage.

Toyota is making its first big bet on the airborne urban mobility market of the future by investing $394 million in Joby Aviation, a California-based company that has developed a four-passenger, battery-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.

Toyota served as the lead investor in Joby's $590 million Series C financing round and says it will share its vaunted expertise in manufacturing, quality and cost controls to help Joby develop, produce and commercialize its eVTOL aircraft. Toyota will also appoint Executive Vice President Shigeki Tomoyama to the Joby board of directors.

The move gives the automaker a presence in the increasingly popular "flying car" segment that has seen the likes of Hyundai, Porsche, Audi and Uber start to develop airborne taxi concepts as one solution to rising urban traffic congestion.

Toyota filed for patent protection back in 2018 for a car capable of driving on terra firma and flying, courtesy of the ability to transform itself via a pair of struts that tilt upward and sprout spring-loaded rotor blades from the wheels, enabling it to fly. But the company hasn't showed off an actual prototype.

"Air transportation has been a long-term goal for Toyota, and while we continue our work in the automobile business, this agreement sets our sights to the sky," Toyota President and CEO Akio Toyoda said in a statement.

As for the aircraft itself, it looks like a combination of a helicopter, small fixed-wing airplane and drone. Joby claims it can travel at 200 mph and go more than 150 miles on a single charge, with multiple redundancies baked in to avoid single points of failure. No details are offered about its battery pack or powertrain.

Joby is in major growth mode, as evidenced by the many job openings listed on its website, and it says it is building manufacturing and testing facilities in Marina, California, not far from its headquarters in coastal Santa Cruz. The company was founded in 2009 and says it has opened its formal certification program with the Federal Aviation Administration.

Nissan is busily transforming the electric Ariya concept unveiled at the 2019 Tokyo Auto Show into a production model tentatively due out in 2021. It will be positioned as a bigger, more spacious alternative to the Leaf, and it will receive a dose of performance the cheerful hatchback has never benefited from. The Ariya is an evolution of the 2017 IMX concept, and it's closer to production than it might seem. The sheetmetal hides the e-4ORCE twin-motor powertrain we recently drove, which promises to deliver acceleration and grip in spades. The Japanese firm hasn't released final horsepower and torque figures, but it hinted the Ariya will be quick. "Electric motors have changed the world, because this idea of a pure 0-60 is less a differentiator. How you use it, how you deliver it, what it means, and, for the supercars, how many laps you can do, that matters. Naturally, it's exciting. Even the real version of the Ariya is fast — faster or as fast as a Z car," revealed Alfonso Albaisa, Nissan's senior vice president of global design, in an interview with Green Car Reports. The 370Z takes 5.1 seconds to reach 60 mph from a stop, so Albaisa's comments suggest the Ariya could slip under the five-second mark. He qualified the crossover's handling as "extremely good" thanks in part to the battery pack mounted under the passenger compartment, a configuration which lowers the center of gravity. Hitting freeway speeds in under five seconds is less important than driving range, but the Ariya should deliver in that department, too. Nissan previously floated a 300-mile range, and Albaisa affirmed that's still the development team's goal. Whether it will achieve that number on the WLTP testing cycle or the EPA's isn't known. We expect the production version of the Nissan Ariya — a name that might not end up on the tailgate — will reach showrooms in 2021. The company's American dealers got a preview of it in late 2019, so the project has reached an advanced stage. When it lands, it will compete in the same burgeoning segment as the Tesla Model Y, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the Fisker Ocean, and the Audi Q4 E-Tron. Pricing will start in the vicinity of $40,000.

Japanese world number one badminton player Kento Momota has been injured in a vehicle crash near Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur.

Fire department officials say the accident occurred at around 5:00 a.m. on Monday, local time.

The Japanese car market is probably the world's most peculiar because it features so many models that are only sold there, the ones enthusiasts know as JDM specials.