Honda China output still patchy on engine shortage

Honda Motor Co said on Thursday that its Chinese car factories were still largely halted due to patchy supplies of engines from a water-damaged engine plant in the southern city of Guangzhou. Japan's No.2 automaker had suspended production on and off at all four of its Chinese car assembly plants and an engine factory since as far back as June 3 after heavy rains flooded two of the facilities in Guangzhou.

A spokeswoman said repair work was still in progress at one of the two lines at the 360,000-units-a-year engine factory, held jointly with Dongfeng Motor Corp, forcing most of its car factories to remain shuttered.

Honda's main car factories are owned in separate joint ventures with Dongfeng Motor and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co.

The Dongfeng Honda factory in Wuhan, central China, which gets some engine parts from the damaged factory in Guangzhou, resumed production on Wednesday and will remain open through Friday, the spokeswoman said. It builds the CR-V sport utility vehicle and Civic sedan.

Honda's three other car factories all procure engines from the damaged plant, and were closed on Thursday.

On Friday, production will resume on one of the engine plant's two lines and only the second shift of the 120,000 units-a-year Guangzhou Honda car factory, which builds the Accord, Odyssey, Fit and City models.

Honda said it did not know how much financial impact the production loss has caused.

Honda's four car factories have a total production capacity of 530,000 vehicles a year and are a growing source of earnings.