It is the morning after a 7.4 magnitude tremor,the strongest aftershock so far, located in approximately the same area as the devastating March 11 quake, rattled northern Japan. Most of the increasingly quake-blasé Japan shrugged it off.

Then in the late Japanese morning, a bit of good news from and for the automotive sector. Toyota Japan will re-open for business on April 18. (Read More…)

Nobody dares to say it aloud, but parts of the “Buy American” contingent are secretly high-fifing when bad news from Japan is on TV or on the net. U.S. car companies themselves aren’t so sure, one missing chip, or an absent acceleration sensor can bring a whole line down. And of course they won’t be caught saying something reprehensible. Leave it to the Deutsche Bank and The Nikkei to end the (dis)grace period and to come out with their analysis of which carmaker might gain from the Tohoku tsunami. (Read More…)

If you are a respectable auto manufacturer, better don’t show up at the Shanghai Auto Show (open to the public on April 21) without an EV or at least a hybrid. Not that there is a huge demand. Despite lavish subsidies (in Beijing, I could collect $9,000 from the government for driving an EV, an amount the city will supposedly double – a moot point if I don’t get lucky in the license plate lottery), where was I, despite lavish subsidies, the take rate in China remains minuscule.

Wharton says that ”EV sales today account for only 0.06% of all vehicle sales in China.” Hybrids? Google leaves us in the dark. This does not discourage consultants from McKinsey on down from promising that China will be a bonanza for new energy vehicles. On top of that, the government wants it. One of the many companies to show up with a green car in Shanghai is BMW. (Read More…)

Members of the media and the legal profession who receive regular updates from the U.S. Department of Transportation were in for a shock this morning as they opened the last announcement from NHTSA. ZoneAlarm by Check Point Software, which claims market leadership in the firewall and security business, warns that a DOT press release is a “possible fraud attempt.” (Read More…)

Everybody thinks the Japanese auto industry will re-open for business next week, and will happily produce away. This is clearly not the case. What will be opened will proceed very carefully through the minefields of missing parts and cut power. A lot will not be re-opened at all.

When we reported yesterday about the flash message that Toyota will restart the Corolla production at the Sagamihara plant, we deduced that this could mean a prolonged outage for their new Miyagi plant up north. As often, there is a bigger story lurking in a smaller story. (Read More…)

Living with container transit times in your head, you know when the parts pipeline from Japan to overseas locations should run dry. Japan to Europe is about four weeks. And exactly 4 weeks after the tsunami hit in Tohoku, Honda will set its Swindon plant in the UK to max conserve. According to Reuters, Honda will reduce its UK output by half, starting on April 11. (Read More…)

Paul Nolasco at Toyota sends us a message saying that Toyota has “decided to resume production at the Sagamihara Plant of Central Motor.  Production is to start on April 11.”

Why should this impact the Yaris? Please bear with us.

It is too late to reach anyone at Toyota to find out the exact significance of the message. What follows is an educated guess until we can update you with firsthand information. (Read More…)

Not very unexpectedly, ratings agency Moody’s is looking into taking it’s view of Toyota’s long-term debt down a notch. Usually reliable Reuters says that Moody’s “put its credit rating on Toyota Motor Corp on review for a possible downgrade.” For the obvious reasons, namely disruptions to Toyota’s supply chain from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and subsequent power cuts. Even if bond ratings put you to sleep, you might be interested in Moody’s views on the resumption on normal car production. (Read More…)

“Toyota will not be resuming vehicle production at most of its plants next week, contrary to what has been reported.”

This was Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco’s answer when we reached him this (Tokyo) morning for a comment on a story that had appeared in The Nikkei [sub] at 2 a.m. last night. (Emphasis ours.) Without quoting sources, the Nikkei had written that “Toyota Motor Corp. has decided to reopen most of its domestic automobile plants as early as next week to start churning out a limited number of models.” This is clearly humbug. The Nikkei has done it again. (Read More…)

Toyota and Microsoft will host a joint live webcast tomorrow, Wednesday, April 6 at 1 p.m. Pacific. “Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, and Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corp., to discuss a collaboration between the two companies.,” says Microsoft. (Read More…)

The German new car market grew a nice 11.4 percent in March. For the first quarter of 2011, the German market is up by 13.9 percent. This according to monthly registration statistics, released by Germany’s Kraftfahrtbundesamt. The picture above however says more than the 306 words of this article. (Read More…)

In an oddly-timed 2 am (Tokyo time) filing, The Nikkei [sub] writes that “Toyota Motor Corp. has decided to reopen most of its domestic automobile plants as early as next week to start churning out a limited number of models.” (Read More…)

Would you believe that trading in China’s SAIC, joint venture partner of GM and Volkswagen, had been suspended since February now? Trading should resume soon, now that the world knows what the real reason for the monster halt is. It’s a long story. It all starts with the fact that there are two SAICs. (Read More…)

Yesterday,  Spyker CEO Muller said everything is peachy. Saab “is not on the verge of collapse,” Muller said to a rapt audience of reporters, while, as Reuters snidely remarked, “Saab was presenting new vehicles already shown at the Geneva auto show.” Muller promised that “a small glitch does not change the fact that cars are being made,” and that Saab would have the widest and newest range in its history next year. This year? No problem at all. Just that output would be  more weighted towards the second half of the year. Which in itself would be a miracle, and outpacing the competition, because in Europe, auto sales are more weighted towards the first half of the year. This was yesterday. Now is today. (Read More…)

When you have a problem, there usually is no shortage of well-meant advice. When it emerged that power shortage is the biggest problem of the quake- and tsunami-stricken Japanese auto industry, or the Japanese industry as whole, good advice came pouring in. It ranged from “why don’t they just park an aircraft carrier by the dock” to “what’s wrong with using generators?” What’s wrong with them? (Read More…)