Toyota and Honda extend plant shutdowns
Toyota and Honda extend plant shutdowns – Toyota, Japan and the global car industry’s biggest producer, on Tuesday said that its vehicle production would remain suspended until Saturday March 26. The company had previously said its production would remain stopped until the end of Tuesday, but did not say when it would resume. Toyota has 27 plants in Japan producing vehicles or components.
On Monday the company resumed production of spare parts to serve its overseas operations. In Europe, the company said that the extended halt in production could delay imports of some of its models, including the Prius hybrid model, RAV4 small sport utility vehicle, Land Cruiser four-by-four, iQ city car and Lexus luxury vehicles. “The longer the stop, the likelier it will be that we have some delays in deliveries”, a spokesman said.
Honda, which had announced a shutdown of its plants until at least March 21, said on Tuesday that they would remain closed until March 27. Seeking to regroup after the earthquake, Japan’s carmakers have faced the unenviable choice of either staying closed or resuming production, but risking they will run out of components. The disaster decimated the country’s automotive supply base and power supply.
Nissan on Monday resumed limited operations at five of its Japanese six plants. The carmaker’s Oppama, Tochigi, Kyushu, Yokohama and Nissan Shatai plants resumed producing parts for overseas manufacturing and repair parts. Its engine plant in Iwaki, inside the disaster zone, remains closed.
Nissan said it would resume vehicle production from March 24 “while inventory of supply lasts”. The car industry has been one of the industries hardest hit by the disaster. Overseas carmakers including General Motors, its European Opel division, and Renault’s South Korean Renault Samsung Motors unit, have had to halt some production because of a lack of parts – mostly electronic components from Japan.
Frost & Sullivan, the consultancy, wrote on Tuesday that the halt in production would lead to lost revenues, and that carmakers would be unable to make up for the shortfall within the current fiscal year, which ends on March 31. “A rising Yen, which has appreciated by 3.75 per cent during the last ten days already, might hurt the profitability of Japanese companies”, Vivek Vaidya wrote. “On the other hand, the reconstruction of the country could provide an impetus to the Japanese economy, by creating an economic activity and a demand for the replacement of cars”.
Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4c14cb10-546f-11e0-979a-00144feab49a.html#axzz1HKvNrDBm
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