European sales of new cars rose a tiny 0.9 percent in February, the European manufacturer association ACEA reports. Two months into the year, new car registrations are down slightly by 0.3 percent. (Read More…)

On Thursday, Toyota will restart seven parts plants in central Japan to supply replacement parts for the domestic market, The Nikkei [sub] reports. Production of parts for overseas markets will start Monday. (Read More…)

How do you goose fuel economy? Lower the cubic inches. Then add a little blow. Honeywell hopes that usage of turbochargers will double in new U.S. automobiles by 2015, “as tighter fuel economy standards foster an emerging market,” writes Bloomberg. The U.S. has among the lowest turbo use in the world, making it an “emerging region from a turbo standpoint,” Alex Ismail, head of Honeywell’s transportation systems division, said. (Read More…)

“The ripple effect of the stoppages to supply and production in Japan will be felt in many parts of the world, including the United States, China, and Europe, as many key parts and technology are exported to global operations from Japan, writes IHS Global Insight in a research report. “Disruption to production of parts that are unique and cannot be easily shifted has the potential to hit output badly at several automakers in the near term.”

First to be hit will be Japanese production sites overseas which often import 20 percent or more of their parts from back home.

However, plants owned by U.S. or European companies are not immune. (Read More…)

For days, Toyota had no word from its plants in the northern Japan quake zone. Many communities in the region are still cut off. Over the weekend, Toyota sent two truck convoys up north. On Sunday, a convoy of six water tankers, two fuel tankers and nine cargo trucks reached the area which now suffers wet weather and below freezing temperatures. A second convoy arrived on Monday. (Read More…)

Reuters found another problem for Japanese car makers: They will miss out on China’s luxury car market. Other than the German competition, the top Japanese manufacturers export all their luxury cars to China. “With Toyota, Honda and Nissan having shut all of plants in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami, exports to China will suffer,” says Reuters. That comes at a very inconvenient time. (Read More…)

High profile German companies not only shut down their Japanese operations like the Japanese colleagues. They are also recalling Germans back to Germany. (Read More…)

Japan’s industrial output suffered major damage after one of the world’s strongest earthquakes, followed by an unprecedented tsunami hit Japan last week. Global supply chains are disrupted.

This is today’s rundown on auto plant closures. (Read More…)

Even if Japan’s nuclear power plants will be brought under control, even if roads, rails and ports are back up, the Japanese car industry will have to deal with a more serious problem: Blackouts.

On Monday, Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, will start turning off the power for three hours each to selected areas. This will happen once, in some areas twice per day. When the schedule was put up on Tepco’s website, the server crashed. That was just the beginning of the problems. (Read More…)

Many friends asked us what they can do to help the people in Japan. After many emails and Skype calls with family and friends, here are Don’ts and Dos of helping. (Read More…)

Many pronounced the end of China’s torrid growth of car sales after they slowed to just 4.57 percent in February. Xing Huang, chairman of state-owned auto parts maker China Auto Parts & Accessories Corp (CAPAC), thinks otherwise. He expects the Chinese auto market to grow at the same speed in 2011 as in the year before, says Reuters. That would  be 32 percent. (Read More…)

The Renault spy farce has taken yet another, this time totally unexpected twist. Presumptive spy catchers at Renault are behind bars. Renault’s security managers Marc Tixador and Dominique Gevrey are being held for questioning at the offices of France’s DCRI domestic intelligence agency which is investigating the matter, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor told Reuters. (Read More…)

While other car blogs interrupt their reporting to show gratuitous pictures from the massive earthquake in Japan, TTAC stays on topic. Even in this confused state, there are better sources for real-time information on the catastrophe in Japan than armchair car bloggers.

“The devastating earthquake that hit eastern Japan Friday will likely deal a severe blow to the nation’s overall economy, as that section of the country serves as a major hub for automobile, autoparts, energy and materials industries,” The Nikkei [sub] reports. The world’s auto industry has barely begun to recover. The disaster in Japan could have a major impact.

While having live news of the evacuation around two nuclear power plants in one ear, here the situation of the auto plants according to the latest news. (Read More…)

How many times had I written that Volkswagen’s sicklish SEAT will come to China? I had to peruse Google to find out. For more than two years, SEAT’s impending arrival in the Middle Kingdom had been floated, and then, like clockwork, the denials followed. So with a good deal of “yeah sure, it has been tried before” do we read the story in Autocar that “the Spanish marque will exhibit for the first time at next month’s Shanghai Motor Show and expects to be selling cars in China from early in 2012.” (Read More…)

„We should check our earthquake bag.“

That was one of the first things my wife said as we watched the news from Tokyo from a safe Beijing distance. Earthquakes are part of your life in Japan.

Next to our bed in Tokyo is a big black knapsack, filled with all kinds of survival gear: Water, space blanket, a small tarp, babywipes, two sets of MREs, a big knife, a radio, a flashlight. When the earth shakes, the idea is to grab the bag and to abandon the building as fast as you can. The evacuation path is mapped out and burned into our brain. (Read More…)