Thursday, March 24, 2011

Toyota (TM) in Ominous Warning to U.S. Plants

A spokesman for Toyota (NYSE:TM) said to its North American and Mexican factories that they need to be ready for a possible shutdown as the parts shortage crisis coming about from the earthquake in Japan could end with that scenario.

Word has reportedly gone out to all 13 of Toyota's factories in the United States, Canada and Mexico. This does not mean that the plants will stop working, Toyota spokesman Mike Goss added, but that they should be ready in case the need arises.

"We expect some kind of interruptions," he said. "They did resume parts production for overseas and for replacement parts," Goss said, "but that was just the suppliers that were capable of doing it."

Toyota employs 25,000 manufacturing and R&D workers in North America alone.

Spokespeople for Nissan (NSANY), Honda (NYSE:HMC) and Ford (NYSE:F) all said those automakers are making no plans to shut down their plants at this time.

General Motors (NYSE:GM) has already had to stop production of a truck plant in Shreveport, La. and a related engine plant in New York State due to shortages of parts from Japan.




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