Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, Lexus, Toyota
Production issues in Japan continue three weeks after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated the island nation. Major Japanese automakers have consistently pushed back plant start-up times and Toyota is no different, with a current forecast of an April 11 or April 14 re-boot. And that’s best-case scenario. The automaker said in a statement Tuesday that it was looking into supply issues, adding “depending on vehicle type, there may be a significant impact on our production capabilities.”
Automotive News reports that the longest wait time could be for Toyota’s Miyagi assembly plant, which makes the Yaris subcompact. Sources tell AN that the plant will likely be down for at least a month, as ruptured gas lines in the facility link to a heavily damaged natural gas plant in the quake-devastated region of Sendai. The automaker is said to be looking at other options to power the otherwise repaired facility. The prolonged shutdown at the Miyagi plant could ultimately affect Toyota’s U.S. supply of Yaris models, which only come from that plant.
One factory that has been revitalized is the plant that makes the Prius, Lexus CT 200h and Lexus HS250h. But a source apparently informed AN that a Toyota purchasing executive admits that the facility is only running at half capacity.
Right now, the situation in Japan hasn’t had much affect on U.S. vehicle availability, but a prolonged shutdown of supplier plants could be devastating. IHS Global Insight estimates that 30 percent of the world’s global auto production could be lost if Japan plants remain closed for six weeks or more.
[Source: Automotive News – sub. req.]
Report: Toyota Yaris plant to be shuttered for at least another month originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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BMW may be planning to set up a new manufacturing facility in Brazil. The automaker currently only sells around 10,000 units per year in the South American country, but BMW has seen sales leap by 50 percent annually in the market for the past few years. According to Reuters, standards of living in Brazil are increasing at a rapid pace as the country prepares to host both the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Those increases have helped to fuel light vehicle sales, which ticked up by 11 percent in 2010 to 3.33 million units. That figure surpasses even Germany’s appetite for passenger cars.
