Thursday, April 7, 2011

Japan's auto industry tries to recover

The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, leaving it in a doomsday scenario, in addition to sow death and destruction, has led to extensive damage to the car manufacturers of the Rising Sun who had to cope with a sudden drop in capacity of their plants. Toyota lost production of 200,000 vehicles in March and most of the plants Toyota and Lexus will not be operational until mid-April due to the lack of energy sources.

For the moment, only two plants are in operation while 16 can not work: the result is that now the models produced have decreased dramatically. The losses are estimated at about 55,000 Nissan vehicles, also, this manufacturer has an engine plant in Iwaki City, located in the area of the earthquake and suffered some serious damage.

The idea is to restore its production capacity by the end of April. By mid of this month however, the Nissan should resume activities even if the assembly of new cars will proceed in a reduced form. The Honda has production centers in Tochigi, suffered the death of one worker and injuring 16 other workers.

The estimated loss from the interruption of production due to the earthquake amounted to 46,000 vehicles and the manufacturer has decided to drop by more than 50% of its production sites in North America but did not specify for how long. The Japanese company still has not lost heart and expects its production sites to enter the return to be operational April 11.

A difficult situation, compounded by the method "just in time", which provides a supply of components for vehicle production limited to the needs of the moment in order to reduce costs. A difficult moment, which will be reflected on U.S. manufacturers, which use various mechanical parts from Japan.

Despite everything, however, there is someone who sees the light at the end of the tunnel, as the analyst Christopher Richter, according to which Japanese manufacturers will be able to recover as early as next year.

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