Toyota Motor Corp. will stop production at almost all of its North American factories for four to five days this month because of disruption to parts supplies from Japan due to the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Toyota Motor Corp. will stop production at almost all of its North American factories for four to five days this month because of disruption to parts supplies from Japan due to the Great East Japan Earthquake.
The company said Friday that 12 of its 13 assembly and components factories in the United States, Canada and Mexico would be affected by the stoppage before April 25, except for one components factory in Missouri.
Production of Toyota's Camry model at a Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. factory in Indiana will also be halted.
The weekday stoppages are the first to be imposed by Toyota in North America since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which caused extensive damage to Toyota's production base and supply network in Japan.
Similar stoppages were imposed following a sharp fall in demand in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
The lost production due to the stoppages and other production cuts is expected to total about 35,000 vehicles, or 2.4 percent of total output for 2010, according to Toyota.
The carmaker will give training sessions to workers rather than laying them off.
Toyota has already moved to stop Saturday and overtime production in North America because of its supply problems. The failure of crucial electronic and plastic parts is behind the temporary factory closures.
Toyota said it was difficult to predict whether the disruption would continue into May and later. Prolonged production problems in North America would likely affect sales in the United States, a key market.
About 70 percent of vehicles sold in the United States are made in the region.
Meanwhile, Toyota and Nissan Motor Co. said Friday that they would reopen factories in Japan closed in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Toyota has already resumed production at two of its factories and expects to have all of its plants reopened by April 18, including factories of affiliates Central Motor Co. and Kanto Auto Works Ltd. in the quake-hit prefectures of Miyagi and Iwate.
Nissan plans to resume production at its two factories in Kanagawa Prefecture on Monday and two factories in Fukuoka Prefecture on Wednesday.
The reopening of its plant in Tochigi Prefecture is expected to be delayed until April 18 because of extra time needed to get an engine factory in Fukushima Prefecture back in operation, according to Nissan.
The output of Nissan's and Toyota's plants in Japan is expected to be about half of pre-disaster levels because of the continuing parts supply problems, the automakers said.