Toyota and Honda further delay production due to supply shortages

Global car making giants Toyota and Honda have delayed plans to restart assembly in Japan because of a shortage of necessary parts, with supply chains hit by this month’s earthquake and tsunami.

Toyota said that it has delayed plans to restart car production until after March 26.

The automaker lacks parts such as electronics devices and rubber and resin products. The halt to auto assembly will affect 140,000 units, a spokesman said.

Toyota started producing replacement parts for the domestic market on Thursday and parts for overseas production on Monday, but has idled vehicle assembly operations since the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

The disruption to supply chains had previously led Honda to suspend production until Wednesday, but it has now extended the suspension of finished cars and motorcycles at three plants to March 27.

As to whether operations will resume on March 28, Honda said it will "make decisions based on the status of the recovery of Japanese society as a whole as well as the supply of parts".

The disasters have plunged Japan into what Prime Minister Naoto Kan has called its worst crisis since World War II, exacerbated by a nuclear emergency at the stricken Fukushima plant.

Infrastructure along the northeast coast has been shattered while leading companies have shuttered plants amid rolling power outages, hitting output.

Exports of key components and crucial equipment used in the assembly of goods abroad, such as silicon wafers, liquid-crystal displays and electric machinery, have also been hit sending shockwaves across global markets.

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