Situation With Japanese Manufacturers

MetzgerMeister

Is it true what I'm hearing about Honda and Toyota closing down FOR GOOD due to the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan??

hellyeah

link etc?

MetzgerMeister

I don't have a link, it's just something that a friend apparently heard on channel 4 news. I can't find anything relating to it on their site.

alias no.9

Considering both have substantial operations outside Japan, I'd suggest you find more authoritative sources to listen to.

mickdw

einheisserschre wrote: »

Is it true what I'm hearing about Honda and Toyota closing down FOR GOOD due to the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan??

Im sure if plants are damaged, they will close those plants for a time. Who said they were closing for good?

johnos1984

They are closed down until Monday AFAIK

Toyota suffered minor damage, Honda was hit more so with a number of workers injured, one killed and a Nissan plant had two workers injured. I think I read it on the BBC website last night.

The plants are closed for safety inspections. I'll find the link later

MetzgerMeister

They're not gone, they have suspended operations:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704296604576196140410967916.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

andyseadog

but mazda, nissan, suzuki etc decided to ride it out.

johnos1984

andyseadog wrote: »

but mazda, nissan, suzuki etc decided to ride it out.

Their home plants could just be in different parts of Japan

Shane732

Could you imagine all the Nissan GTR that could have been ruined in it? :eek:

Aren't GTR's fairly cheap in Japan relative to what the cost here?

andyseadog

my uncle said he's not back to work yet over there anyway. taking time to let things 'chill', and asses the damage, do a bit of a tidy up before things carry on, and thats in tokyo city, so i asume most places will be closed for the next short while, im sure even the building that were designed to resist earthquakes weren't quite expecting that.

it'd take more than an earthquake in an earthquake prone country to make businesses pick up and leave.

Atlantic Dawn

Almost all production for the UK and Ireland is done in the UK for Honda and Toyota.

andyseadog

more interestingly, (and probably a different thread altogether) do you think that japanese import cars will now become much more scarce, or in the next year or two do you think we will see lots of 'clean' looking imports coming over full of electrical glitches/ rust from being caught up in the tsunami? (i know that should be the last of anyones worries in the current crisis, but...)

Tefral

^^ if your on Facebook, have a search for "Powervehicles.com" and have a look at their pics... utterly soul destroying.

andyseadog

cronin_j wrote: »

^^ if your on Facebook, have a search for "Powervehicles.com" and have a look at their pics... utterly soul destroying.

the cars outside look ok, the land they're on is just re arranged at new awkward angles, but i do hope those garages that have been rotated 90 degrees weren't full of japanese metal

Nissan doctor

The lads at Powervehicles seem to have rescued all their cars and headed to the south in the transporter.

None of the car plants will be closed permenantly. The buildings are all earthquake proof and as far as I can see none of them would have been directly effected by the tsunami. The problems for the short term future of all industry in Japan is going to be power and fuel.


As for an influx of water damaged cars cought in the water.....no, it wasn't slowly rising flood water, there is not a car cought in the tsunami that wouldn't have been battered off buildings and destroyed with debris.


Having said that, no matter how enthusiastic about cars we are......they don't matter a damm in the big picture over there.:(

MetzgerMeister

alias no.9 wrote: »

Considering both have substantial operations outside Japan, I'd suggest you find more authoritative sources to listen to.

Yeah I understand that. It was just something someone said to me in passing. Hence why I asked the question here, instead of telling people that this happened.

Nissan doctor

On the subject of Japanese manufacturer losses, I got these pictures from Oppama warf where Nissan has a massive storage facility......:(

The big picture is mostly Bluebirds with a few 370z's too, the second pic are almost all Nissan Skyline 370gt's/Infinity G37's and a few Skyline crossovers/Infinity fx's.

Seth Brundle

Shane732 wrote: »

Could you imagine all the Nissan GTR that could have been ruined in it? :eek:

Yes but every cloud has a silver lining - think of all the Micras that would have been killed!

enda1

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Almost all production for the UK and Ireland is done in the UK for Honda and Toyota.

Not true. Toyota produces about half it's European sales in Europe. The uk only produces avensis and I think auris. France the yaris and turkey the auris also. Czech the aygo. All the others are made in Japan. But then Toyota is near Nagoya in Japan further to the south so not badly affected, but they have other plants and I believe a new one opened near where the earthquake happened. For Honda I know little... Either way, Toyota have suffered far worse in the past, and there's not a hope in he'll they're finished.

zilog_jones

kbannon wrote: »

Yes but every cloud has a silver lining - think of all the Micras that would have been killed!

The current ones are built in India (where ours come from), Thailand, China and Mexico - not Japan!

@enda1: I think our Corollas are built in Turkey too. That only really leaves the Prius, Land Cruiser, Rav 4, Corolla Verso (maybe), iQ and Lexus models - not exactly their biggest sellers in Europe.

Zonda999

Corolla verso is also assembled in Turkey afaik

edwinkane

andyseadog wrote: »

more interestingly, (and probably a different thread altogether) do you think that japanese import cars will now become much more scarce, or in the next year or two do you think we will see lots of 'clean' looking imports coming over full of electrical glitches/ rust from being caught up in the tsunami? (i know that should be the last of anyones worries in the current crisis, but...)

The japanese imports into ireland are mainly made in the UK, so what is happening in Japan shuld have little bearing on the import of new "Japanese" cars.

zilog_jones

I think andyseadog was talking about used imports from Japan, that's what people usually mean when they say "Japanese imports" here as all cars (under 27 years old) in Ireland are imports

ShadowHearth

I really don't think Toyota and Honda will close Down becouse of this.

What I am worried about are all old performance cars. Skylines, silvias, subarus etc. Quite alot of them would be destroyed now. I presume getting parts of jap for performance cars will be quite hard now. Alot of paperwork would have been destroyed too.

Ofc all this is just small things competing to what happened to people. So many died, lost theyr houses, nuclear power plant problems... Economy dead for weeks...

It will be a long and hard year for japan...

AugustusMinimus

einheisserschre wrote: »

Is it true what I'm hearing about Honda and Toyota closing down FOR GOOD due to the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan??

No offence, but you didn't think this sounded a bit silly ?

MetzgerMeister

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

No offence, but you didn't think this sounded a bit silly ?

In hindsight, yes

Sponge Bob

I got an update on this.

Honda Toyota Nissan/Renault Toyota and Subaru have plants and PARTS suppliers in the affected area.

Subaru Honda and Nissan/Renault are worst affected. They will be affected by damaged ports / some ongoing seismic/ equipment damage and power shortages form the 4000MW of electrical supply that has shut down around there....possibly for good.

Toyota only had a Yaris plant in the area, we get our Yarises from France. Parts I dunno.

The worst affected overall I was told, was possibly Subaru not the others.

Nissan have a plant named Iwaki which took a direct Tsunami hit and is near the nuclear power plants that we hear about. Mazda are mainly produced very far south around Hiroshima and therefore Mazda are largely unaffected.

There is an interesting article here.

My source is trying to figure out who makes the parts not who BADGES them for resale. They think Renault may be worse affected than they have so far indicated. Isuu and Hino , dunno.

Sponge Bob

Nissan doctor wrote: »

The big picture is mostly Bluebirds with a few 370z's too, the second pic are almost all Nissan Skyline 370gt's/Infinity G37's and a few Skyline crossovers/Infinity fx's.

The Plant in Oppama is unaffected. They will ship the water damaged ones off to the Phillipines or somewhere with cheap labour and will be able to resume exporting shortly. The wharf is HERE on Google maps, plant to left offscreen

Sponge Bob

Renault is affected. The Iwaki Plant that was hit by the Tsunami is the one that makes V6 Engines for both Renault and Nissan. They will not be able to replace those Skylines and Infinitis that were damaged on the dockside further south if they have no engines for them either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_VQ_engine

That engine. I am checking on what else was taken out.

Big Nasty

Interesting thread - could do with a title change maybe?

MetzgerMeister

MCMLXXV wrote: »

Interesting thread - could do with a title change maybe?

Yes indeed

Big Nasty

einheisserschre wrote: »

Yes indeed

Off you pop so - ya know how to do that don't ya?

johnos1984

Taken from the bbc news website 10 minutes ago

Toyota, the world's top carmaker, Nissan and Honda are all suspending production at all their plants in Japan, starting Monday. When production will resume is uncertain. Toyota has 12 factories in the country, while Nissan has three. Honda said the decision would halt its production of 4,000 vehicles a day.

zilog_jones

Sponge Bob wrote: »

My source is trying to figure out who makes the parts not who BADGES them for resale.

I'd say a lot of parts these days are made in China and other places with cheaper labour. The only Japanese car component manufacturer I can think of is Denso, they're based further down south in Aichi but I'm not sure where they do manufacturing. I'm sure there's others.

Seth Brundle

Thread renamed @ OPs request