Domestic vehicle output by Japanese automakers plunged by up to 65 percent in March from a year earlier due to plant closures and supply chains disrupted by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Domestic vehicle output by Japanese automakers plunged by up to 65 percent in March from a year earlier due to plant closures and supply chains disrupted by the Great East Japan Earthquake.
According to production figures released by eight leading automakers April 25, Toyota Motor Corp. posted a year-on-year decline of 62.7 percent in March, a record for that month for the carmaker.
Honda Motor Co. logged a 62.9-percent decline, its largest single month drop.
Nissan Motor Co. reported a fall of 52.4 percent, the steepest plunge for March since 2009, when it recorded a 55.6-percent decline in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in autumn 2008.
Of the eight carmakers, Mitsubishi Motors Corp. posted the smallest decrease at 25.7 percent, while Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., maker of Subaru, reported the largest at 64.9 percent.
The decline was 60.2 percent for Suzuki Motor Corp., 53.6 percent for Mazda Motor Corp. and 57.3 percent for Daihatsu Motor Co.
The automakers said they were only able to operate for about 10 days in March. Many factories were forced to be shut down because of damage or a lack of parts, including semiconductors.
The carmakers are currently operating at 50 to 70 percent capacity in Japan.
Overseas, the automakers managed to maintain production at the same level as in March 2010 using inventoried parts and components.
However, as parts inventories are exhausted, the pace of production in April is expected to fall dramatically, analysts said.
The firms do not expect to return to pre-disaster production any time soon.
Honda said April 25 that it doesn't expect to be back to full production until late this year, revising an earlier prediction of July. It said it expects to operate at 50 percent capacity by the end of June.
Toyota announced a similar projection, saying it would resume normal production in November or December.
The overall production situation is worse than initially predicted, with the supply of parts and materials recovering slowly because it involves a broad range of items, such as chips used in engine control and petrochemical materials required to make plastic parts.
The continuing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is also slowing the distribution of auto parts.
Japan Brake Industrial Co., a leading brake manufacturer and a company affiliated with Hitachi Chemical Co., announced it will produce brakes at factories in and outside Japan, instead of at a subsidiary's factory in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, which is located within the 20-kilometer no-entry zone.
Japan Brake Industrial said that the company is not sure when it can return to pre-disaster output levels.
Fujikura Rubber Ltd., a Tokyo-based supplier of rubber parts for autos, operates a factory in Minami-Soma in Fukushima Prefecture. Though the firm managed to get its production line running again this month, it is only operating at about 30 percent of pre-disaster levels. The factory is outside the no-entry zone.
"We have no problem with production equipment, but it takes longer to receive raw materials," a company official said.