Honda to suspend car output at more China plants

Honda Motor Co will cancel production at a 120,000 units-a-year car factory in China held with Dongfeng Motor Corp on Tuesday due to disruption of supply from a rain-damaged engine factory in the south, a Honda spokeswoman said on Monday.

Japan's No.2 automaker had suspended production at two major car factories and an engine plant in the southern city of Guangzhou due to flooding from heavy rains. It said last week the factory held with Dongfeng in the central Chinese city of Wuhan could also be suspended in the event of a supply bottleneck.

The engine factory in Guangzhou, also owned jointly with Dongfeng, supplies some engine parts to the Wuhan factory, which builds CR-V sport utility vehicles and Civic sedan models.

Honda said it was unclear how much damage, if any, the facilities in Guangzhou suffered from the flooding. The engine factory and one of the car factories were suspended for four days last week. The other car plant was undamaged but shuttered for two days since engine supply was disrupted.

The two car factories, run jointly with Guangzhou Automobile Group Co, build the Accord, Odyssey, Fit and City models and have a combined annual production capacity of 360,000 vehicles.

Production only of engines and cars that were already on the assembly lines when operations were halted would resume on Tuesday to gauge any damage to the facilities, the spokeswoman said. Honda will decide late on Tuesday how to proceed on the following day, she said.

Another export-only factory in Guangzhou, which builds the Jazz subcompact for the European market, will close for half of Tuesday. Honda owns a majority of that plant.

All factories were closed on Monday for a national holiday.