Bloomberg News - Japanese carmakers, facing electricity shortages after the nation’s record earthquake crippled power plants, may consider measures including rotating production to save energy, Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) said.
Taking turns running assembly lines is among the measures that should be considered as automakers coordinate efforts through their main industry group, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, Masami Doi, a spokesman for Toyota, said today by phone.
Manufacturers face a cut in summer power supply of about 15 percent after the March 11 temblor knocked out generators, curbing growth in the world’s third-largest economy. Plant damage and power outages have forced carmakers including Toyota and Honda Motor Co. to halt domestic car assembly, causing Toyota to lose an estimated 140,000 units of production so far.
Automakers are expected to meet "shortly" to discuss a rotation schedule, as they seek to avoid scheduled blackouts in exchange for reducing their power use, Kyodo reported yesterday, citing people familiar with the matter. Other industries may take similar measures, Kyodo said.
Nuclear Crisis
Toyota’s Doi said no measures had been decided yet. Toshitake Inoshita, a spokesman for Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s second-largest carmaker, said no discussions have taken place about rotating production or any other detailed plans. The auto industry will cooperate as much as possible to save power, Inoshita said today by phone.
The magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic plant, triggering the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986 and limiting electricity supply to the country’s most industrialized area. The utility known as Tepco began rolling blackouts for Tokyo and its surroundings after the disaster.
Tepco had capacity to supply 38,500 megawatts of electricity as of March 24 and plans to boost that to 46,500 megawatts by the end of July through buying supply from other utilities and opening idled thermal plants, it said in a statement on its website. It expects a daily shortage of 8,500 megawatts this summer as it estimates seasonal demand will peak at about 55,000 megawatts, it said.
Parts Shortages
The earthquake shut about 11 percent of Japan’s generating capacity, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Industrial users accounted for 27 percent of Tepco’s electricity sales in 2009 and residential users 73 percent, data on the company’s website show.
Shortages of car parts caused by the earthquake may reduce global automobile production by about 30 percent, research company IHS Automotive said March 24. If parts factories affected by the quake don’t return to operation within six weeks, global auto output may drop by as much as 100,000 vehicles a day, according to Michael Robinet, vice president of Lexington, Massachusetts-based IHS. The industry produces 280,000 to 300,000 vehicles daily, he said.
As many as 500 component makers have operations in the areas affected by the disaster, Toshiyuki Shiga, chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, said in an interview on March 25.
