The Japanese parts paralysis claims a new victim. Allegedly. Ford will close its plant in Genk, Belgium, for five days starting April 4. The idea is to conserve auto parts in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami, Ford said in a statement emailed to the media. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Belgium plant was scheduled to be idled for five days in May to keep the production of cars in line with demand. Ford moved up the closure “to ensure we have parts availability going forward given the current situation in Japan,” Ford spokesman John Stoll said. (Read More…)
After the Mach 11 earthquake and tsunami shut down a large number of power plants in Japan, rolling blackouts were instated in large parts of the country. Lack of power emerges more and more as the biggest impediment to a quick recovery.of the Japanese automotive industry. Most of the industry has been shut down. Power will remain scarce for many months in Japan. Come summer and A/C time, the situation will be worse. Japanese automakers are now considering running their factories in rotation to help cut the industry’s electricity consumption, The Nikkei [sub] writes today. Japan’s automakers could prepare for a production loss of well over a million units for the year. (Read More…)
“Cars mangled by the massive wall of water that destroyed into Japan’s northeast coast are being removed by construction equipment, placed on trucks and laid to rest by the thousands on flood plains once covered with water. The cars, many of which are marked with spray paint to indicate if bodies needed to be removed from inside, are laid in neat rows with license plates easily visible for owners or family members hoping to find lost vehicles.”
PS: Despite more than 20,000 dead, you won’t find pictures of them in the Japanese media. It is against Japanese custom to show pictures of the dead. Japanese are shocked when foreign media do not respect this custom.
Except for the faithful at Saabsunited.com, there aren’t too many left who are convinced of Saab’s success. Now, there is one less. Dubbed as “the last Swede,” Saab’s CEO Jan Ake Jonsson handed in his resignation after leading the company through what must have been six very stressful years. (Read More…)
So far, it had been clear that the March 11 earthquake and tsunami would create big problems for the auto industry in Japan in particular and worldwide in general. When asked when, where, and how much, all we received were shrugging shoulders when taking to a westernized counterpart, or an “eeeh” or the customary sucking of air through the teeth when talking to an old school Japanese. Now finally, the first facts emerge. (Read More…)
Japan’s largest and second largest automakers are worlds apart. Last year, Nissan made less than half of the cars the world’s number one, Toyota produced. Looking at the February results of both, we see a Goliath that is slowing down and a David that is revving up mightily. What’s more, we see a Goliath that is heavily exposed to the destruction in Japan, and a David that had moved most of his production abroad, well before the Flood. Let’s compare David and Goliath. (Read More…)
Vehicle output of Japan, the world’s second largest car producing nation, was down across the board in February. The reductions reported today by Japan’s majors pale in comparison to the dramatic losses that will be announced for March, and quite possibly for months to come. (Read More…)
Parts shortages triggered by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan could reduce global automobile production by up to 30 percent, research firm IHS Automotive told Bloomberg. Or at least that’s what Bloomberg heard. (Read More…)
J.D. Power sees a strong March in its crystal ball, powered by real-time transaction data of 8,600 retail franchises throughout the United States. However growth is expected to be much more sedate than the 27 percent jump in February.
Days after the earthquake an tsunami had devastated large parts of the north-east Tohoku area of Japan, Toyota was still cut off from its factories in the hardest hit Miyagi prefecture. A convoy of six water tankers, two fuel tankers and nine cargo trucks braved impassable or closed roads and reached the area on Sunday after the quake. A second convoy arrived on Monday.
By now, Toyota has an out-and-out private army in the region, helping factories and the surrounding communities. (Read More…)
Beginning on Monday, March 28, Toyota will restart production of three hybrid cars “which are in high demand” as Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said.
Both lines of Toyota’s Tsutsumi plant in Toyota City will begin full Prius production on Monday. These used to be mixed production lines. A few cars were left incomplete when Toyota stopped all production in all of Japan after the quake. Those cars will be finished. Then, both lines will make exclusively Prii (as in the now official Toyota Prius plural.) (Read More…)
Our daily run-down of delays, shut-downs, shortages, and postponements, triggered by the March 11 tsunami in Japan.
Toyota informed its U.S. dealers and workers to expect production slowdowns due to parts shortages. “Today, we communicated to team members, associates and dealers here that some production interruptions in North America are likely. It’s too early to predict location or duration,” Toyota said in a statement. Most, but not all of the parts for vehicles built in North America are sourced here. Wall Street Journal
Toyota expects to idle its pickup truck assembly plant south of San Antonio. “We are informing our team members that, with the situation over in Japan, it is likely that we will see some nonproduction days coming,” Craig Mullenbach, spokesman for Toyota’s San Antonio plant, said. Mullenbach added that parts needed to build the full-sized Tundra and mid-sized Tacoma pickup truck in San Antonio are running out. Reuters
Honda will suspend car production at its Japanese factories until at least April 3. Honda will temporarily transfer some functions such as car development and procurement out of its badly damaged R&D center in Tochigi. Reuters
The Financial Times has revealed an insidious plot: “Foreign carmakers wishing to build new plants or add capacity in China’s burgeoning car market are being told by the government that if they wish to expand, they must develop a low-cost local car brand.”
It must be a REALLY slow news day (it is). (Read More…)
The world’s largest automotive supplier, Bosch, is investing big into the world’s largest car market, China. The company has 283,000 employees worldwide. 26,000 of them work in China. Soon, that n umber will nearly double to 50,000, reports Bosch’s hometown paper, the Stuttgarter Nachrichten. (Read More…)
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