Mitsubishi Motors Corp. has finalized the details of a major restructuring plan under which it will slash passenger car production and implement large-scale job cuts, company sources said Thursday.

Under the plan, Mitsubishi Motors will terminate the production of more than 10 of its 24 car models.

As a result, the Oe plant in Nagoya, a key production base, will be shut. Others, including the Okazaki plant in Aichi Prefecture and the Mizushima plant in Okayama Prefecture, will be merged or consolidated, they said.

The planned job cuts are expected to affect 10 percent to 15 percent of the company's workforce of 65,000. The company also plans to cut its parts procurement costs by 20 percent to 30 percent.

The automaker, hit hard by recent coverup scandals involving vehicle defects, is expected to unveil the plan at a news conference Monday at which MMC President Takashi Sonobe and Vice President Rolf Eckrodt will be present.

Eckrodt was sent to Mitsubishi Motors by German-U.S. auto giant DaimlerChrysler AG, which has a 34 percent stake in the troubled Japanese firm.

Mitsubishi Motors has seen a sharp fall in its car sales since the first coverup scandal erupted in July.

It produced only 900,000 passenger cars in 2000, well below its annual production capacity of 1.3 million units, leaving the company no choice but to cut capacity.

The restructuring plan was originally to be unveiled in late March. DaimlerChrysler demanded, however, that the plan's outline be published a month earlier to coincide with Monday's announcement of its earnings report, according to the sources.

Chinese anger growing

BEIJING (Kyodo) A growing number of Chinese owners of Mitsubishi Pajero vehicles are angry over the Japanese automaker's handling of recalls and compensation in the wake of allegations that the vehicle has serious flaws in its brake system, the China Consumer Association said Thursday.

One pedestrian who has been left hospitalized with a 40 percent chance of survival after being hit by a Pajero that allegedly experienced brake failure, has demanded that Mitsubishi Motors Corp. pay medical expenses and unspecified damages out of court, the consumer association said.

In the Sichuan Province in central China alone, 17 people have died and seven injured in accidents allegedly caused by faulty brakes in Pajero sport utility vehicles, a spokesman for the provincial consumer association told Kyodo News.

The association's office has received calls from 111 owners demanding compensation, said the spokesman, who was identified only as Xu.

Mitsubishi Motors said it was investigating the accidents and has already warned of the danger posed by the vehicle and has promised to replace all faulty parts.

at listed repair facilities. This declaration was posted in a full-page advertisement carried in Saturday's edition of the People's Daily, the Communist Party newspaper and reportedly the periodical with the largest circulation in China. Many drivers are, however, not satisfied.

"Some of them want compensation as high as 500,000 yuan (about 6.96 million yen)," Xu said.

Mitsubishi Motors said that, according to its investigations, all the accidents were caused by cars that were smuggled into China and for which the company is not liable.

Out of 72,000 V31 and V33 Pajeros -- the two defective models -- 37,000 were said to have been brought into China illegally.

A Mitsubishi spokesman in Beijing said that regardless of legal requirements, the company would repair all the defective vehicles.