Toyota to Operate All Plants in May at Half Volume
Japan's Toyota Motor Co. said Friday it would operate all its domestic plants at half normal volume from May 10 to June 3, citing problems with parts supply following the quake and tsunami disaster.
"As (Toyota) continues to address its production situation in Japan following the disaster, it has decided that vehicle production from May 10 to June 3 will proceed at approximately 50 percent of normal," the company said.
Toyota said in a statement it would "decide on production after this period after assessing the situation of its suppliers and other related companies."
The Japanese giant last week said it would restart work at all its Japanese vehicle-production facilities from April 18 to April 27 at approximately 50 percent of normal pace, before an annual Japanese holiday through May 9.
"TMC deeply apologizes to its customers for not being able to build every vehicle to meet their desired specifications due to limited parts," it said in a statement.
Toyota said on Wednesday it would temporarily halt production at five European plants for several days in April and May due to a shortage of parts.
The automaker has previously said it will suspend all output operations at most of its 14 North American factories for four to five weekdays later this month.
A component supply crisis has strangled auto production in Japan and enforced a slowdown overseas in the wake of the March 11 disasters, and analysts say it will last several months amid continued power outages.
Japan's biggest ever quake and the tsunami it unleashed shattered supply chains and crippled electricity-generating facilities, including a nuclear power plant at the center of an ongoing atomic emergency.
Many key component manufacturers are based in the worst-hit regions of Japan, their facilities damaged by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake or inundated by the giant wave that followed.
For automakers the world over, the impact has been acute with companies from Toyota to Ford shuttering plants or slowing production as far afield as Britain, the United States, Turkey, France, Australia, Poland and the Philippines.
Source: Agence France Presse
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