U.S. president Obama was not allowed drive the Volt down the Hamtramck assembly line. His colleague in Turkmenistan does not suffer such tight restrictions and was allowed to win Turkmenistan’s first car race. Read More >

There had been rumors that Honda might flee Thailand after Honda’s Thai operation literally drowned. These rumors have been put to rest. The Nikkei [sub] says that Honda decided to build a second factory in Thailand. The plant is said to be placed into the southeastern part of Thailand where the risk of flooding is lower. Read More >

Honda, along with other Japanese carmakers, recovered within weeks from a devastating earthquake , tsunami and nuclear meltdown. Nevertheless, Monday morning production strategists pestered the Japanese why they had not relocated to safer grounds. It took Honda half a year to recover from a killer flood that had inundated those safer grounds. Read More >

When, some seven weeks ago, the Nikkei had the rumor that Nissan would revive its Datsun brand for low cost cars, targeted at emerging markets, official sources at Nissan – not surprisingly – had no comment.

One not so charitable source at Nissan conceded that “this time, the Nikkei is less on crack than sometimes.” Another more diplomatic source said: ”I guess you can expect a press release soon.”

That press release arrived today. Read More >

Today, I heard at Toyota’s October-December results conference that TMC lost 240,000 unmade (and some made) cars to the Thai flood. After the conference, I asked Toyota spokesman Dion Corbett how many cars Toyota had lost to the tsunami.

I expected a bit less than a million. To my surprise, Corbett said: “150,000.”

I could not believe it. And I spent the rest of the day twisting arms until I knew how that happened. Read More >

When the March 11 tsunami hit, observers thought that of Japan’s major automakers, Honda would be the least exposed. Most of its global production already is outside of Japan. Very few cars that are produced in Japan are exported. Toyota and Nissan looked much more vulnerable. Distrust predictions: Today, Honda presented the results for the last quarter of 2011. The numbers  look uglier than the cars in the video. Read More >

Honda’s plant in Thailand had been submerged for months. Now that the flood waters have finally retreated, Honda assesses the damage. The plant is a near write-off.

“The restoration work will almost be equal to making a plant from scratch,” a Honda executive told The Nikkei [sub]. Honda decided to completely rebuild the plant located in the Rojana Industrial Park in Ayutthaya Province, central Thailand, at a cost of around $650 million. Read More >

Amid Volvo’s announcement of a plug-in hybrid for markets besides diesel-loving Europe came another tidbit about the lone Swedish brand’s future direction. Rather than 5, 6 or 8 cylinder engines like years past, Volvo will be downsizing, much like BMW – and using modular engines to boot, much like their Bavarian rivals.

Read More >

After the tsunami had hit Japan, Monday morning production experts said that production must be spread over many places in the world, just to be safe. Mention this to people at Honda, and they’ll strangle you in a polite Japanese way.

The Nikkei [sub] writes that Honda will temporarily shut down its plant in Taiwan, because it is lacking parts coming from Thailand. Honda says: Read More >

In China, a “sub-brand” is a brand under a foreign-Chinese joint venture. Examples: Venucia under Dongfeng-Nissan, or Everus under Guangzhou-Honda. (Bertel insists that “sub-brand” is a misnomer, but TIC, This Is China, and he better get used to it.)

The Chinese central government ordered the joint ventures to start the sub-brands. “Order” is maybe too harsh a word, let’s call it strong recommendation. Resistance by the foreign partner is futile. If the foreign partner would ignore the wishes of the Chinese government, life would suddenly become very difficult. Applications for new factories, new cars, new permits, new visa for employees, etc etc, would suddenly be delayed or outright refused.

Why does the Chinese government want the sub-brands? Two words: Read More >

Japanese automakers in Thailand are resuming production in the inundated country, all except Honda. Read More >

Since the Tokyo Auto Show and some Scion scuttlebutt have us on something of a Daihatsu theme here, I thought I’d show a bit of what the small car specialists are up to these days. The truth: despite the brand’s futuristic showcar image projections, Daihatsu mostly plays in the rough-and-tumble entry-level segments of emerging markets, where the cars are small and the margins can be even smaller.

And it’s had better luck there than in the so-called “mature markets.” Though the third generation Charade flopped on the American market amid much popular ridicule of its name (and, according to gearhead lore, oversight of other favorable qualities), the previous generation became the FAW-Tianjin “Xiali,” one of China’s most ubiquitous cars. Now Daihatsu is ditching Europe and  hustling strangely cool little mini-MPVs built in Indonesia with the taglines “it’s very cheap” and “we build them compact.” Who needs developed markets?
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Toyota announced today that it will resume production in Thailand on November 21. Full scale production probably is a while away. At a visit to Thailand, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said that “Toyota is starting to get a firm grasp of the situation and would like to restart production as soon as possible.” This does not mean that it is business as usual yet. Read More >

The Nikkei [sub] says that Toyota’s production in Japan “is being paralyzed by the parts shortage caused by the severe flooding in Thailand, with assembly lines for 20 models to grind to a halt.”

According to the wire service, four minivan models already stopped rolling off the lines, with 16 more models to follow while Japanese plants wait for parts such as electronic components for audio equipment and gauges.

The Nikkei warns: Read More >

The persistent floods in Thailand did cost Japanese automakers already close to  200,000 unbuilt vehicles, and no end of the floods is in sight. This is putting a severe crimp into the major push that was planned for the last quarter of 2011 and the fist quarter of 2012 to make up for lost production after the March 11 tsunami.

Here is a current tally by The Nikkei [sub]. Read More >