Toyota resumes production aftermath earthquake
Just recovering from the temporary setback it survived last week alongside other firms in Japan, as a result of the deadly earthquakes last week, Toyota Motor Corporation has restarted some plants for production in Japan last Monday.
This is not the first time Toyota halts output this year. In January, an explosion at the Aichi Steel plant in Japan, operated by one of Toyota’s affiliates, affected the production of steel parts at that time, thus making the automaker to suspend all vehicle assembly lines within the country from February 8 through February 13.
Recall that the island of Kyushu deadly twin earthquakes that struck last week forced the world’s biggest automaker by sales to halt production in stages between April 18-23, as it could not get auto parts in time from its suppliers.
The largest and leading automakers in terms of numbers now plans to gradually restart most of its vehicle assembly lines in Japan starting from Monday. However, some the factories will remain on hold, including the Motomachi and Miyata plants, which build among others Lexus models.
Such Lexus product lines are the LFA supercar, NX and RX SUVs, ES and GS sedans or CT compact hybrid hatchback. At Motomachi, Toyota also makes the first mass-market fuel cell hydrogen vehicle, Mirai.
According to some estimates made by Kurt Sanger, auto analyst with Deutsche Securities Japan, and quoted by Automotive News Europe, a full week of loss production would total less than 90,000 vehicles and cost the company between 50 billion to 70 billion yen (458.2 million to 641.5 million dollars).