Japan’s leading automakers said yesterday that domestic production plummeted last month after the massive quake and tsunami, which shut off parts supplies and led to widespread power shortages.
Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s biggest automaker, said production in Japan plunged 62.7 percent year-on-year last month, putting it in danger of falling this year from the global top spot it claimed from General Motors Co in 2008.
Toyota’s Japanese output slumped to 129,491 vehicles, which Kyodo News agency said was the lowest since records began in January 1976.
Toyota’s worldwide production fell 29.9 percent to 542,465 vehicles, while output at its Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd and Hino Motors Ltd subsidiaries was also sharply lower.
The March 11 disasters damaged production facilities and nuclear power plants in northeast Japan, triggering the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl and electricity shortages and supply chain disruptions in Japan and worldwide.
Toyota was forced to temporarily close plants and reduce output domestically and in the US, EU, China and Australia, running some facilities at half-capacity or less.
Nissan Motor Co Ltd said production at home fell 52.4 percent year-on-year last month due to the effects of the quake and the termination of a government -subsidy program for environmentally-friendly vehicles.
Nissan’s Japanese production slid to 47,590 units, in contrast to its global output which last month increased 9 percent year-on-year to 382,704 units. Nissan said the figure was a record for the month.
The domestic picture was similar at Honda Motor Co Ltd, which reported output plunged 62.9 percent year-on-year last month, while worldwide total production was down 19.2 percent at 282,254 units.
For the fiscal year to the end of last month, worldwide production was up 8.2 percent at 3,575,362 units compared with the previous year, Honda said.
Also yesterday, Mazda Motor Corp announced a 53.6 percent drop in Japanese production year-on-year last moth, with global production down 33.8 percent.
Mitsubishi Motors Corp said its Japanese production last month fell 25.7 percent to 49,434, while global production slipped 10.9 percent to 106,229.
“The decline in output in Japan was due to restricted operation of the company’s factories after the Great East Japan Earthquake,” the company said.
Many key component manufacturers are based in the northeast of Japan and the shortage of parts has also hit vehicle production overseas.
With auto production stalled, demand for second-hand cars has soared in the disaster--ravaged northeast, Jiji news agency reported.
In hardest-hit Miyagi Prefecture, about 150,000 vehicles, or 10 percent of those in the area, were damaged or destroyed, leading to a boom in second-hand sales.
Prices have surged by ¥100,000 (US$1,200) to ¥150,000 for many models, a dealer told Jiji following the weekly used-car auction in the town of Murata.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the