Gasgoo.com (Shanghai March 15) - The effects of last Friday's earthquake on the Japanese automobile industry will not be going away anytime soon, with several companies announcing that they are further extending production delays. According to a report run by the Guangzhou Daily today, Honda announced that it would be at least one week before it resumes production, without mentioned a specific date. While certain Sino-Japanese joint ventures, such as Guangqi Toyota and Guangqi Honda are still able to maintain normal production output, they stressed that the level of sales in the near future will depend on the availability of Japanese-made equipment.
"Due to the fact that factories have yet to confirm the extent of their losses, and that the status of auto part supplies is still unclear, we have decided to continue delaying production," Honda's Chinese representative confirmed in an interview.
Meanwhile, all of Toyota's factories have been closed since the earthquake. According to estimates, the past three days represent a loss of around 40,000 cars for the automaker.
Whatever angle one looks at it, the decision of Japanese factories to halt production is of no benefit to Sino-Japanese joint ventures. Although a large number of JVs have achieved domestic production of over 90 percent, there is still a significant number of key automobile parts that need to be imported from Japan. When current supplies run dry, domestic production may also come to a stop.
