Honda Motor Co plans to suspend production at some plants in the US and Canada next week as the COVID-19 pandemic, a chip shortage and severe winter weather have affected its supply chain, a company spokesperson said.
The automaker is to halt work at plants in Marysville and East Liberty in Ohio, as well as others in Indiana, Alabama and Ontario, potentially for a week, the spokesperson said yesterday, without specifying the volume of vehicles affected.
Honda made 1.45 million vehicles in North America last year, down 20 percent from 2019. The Japanese company has 12 manufacturing plants in the US and one in Canada.
Photo: Reuters
Separately, Toyota Motor Corp said that the cold front had reduced supply of petrochemical products, affecting production in the US and Mexico.
Some lines, shifts or potentially entire plants are expected to be temporarily halted for several days in Kentucky, West Virginia and Mexico, spokeswoman Shiori Hashimoto said, without providing further details.
The bad weather has added to disruptions for automakers already battling a shortage of semiconductors, which are being gobbled up by consumer electronics companies trying to meet an increase in demand from users stuck at home during the pandemic.
Honda and Toyota already scaled back output at plants around the world earlier this year due to the lack of chips. Major tech companies have also warned about a serious imbalance in supply.
Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co has said the shortage could reduce Honda’s output by 300,000 units, while Toyota is less affected, because it is not as reliant on foreign semiconductor companies.
In Europe, the auto industry reported its worst February sales in eight years, because much of the region remains locked down to contain the pandemic.
Registrations plunged by one-fifth to 850,170 vehicles, the lowest total for the month since 2013, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said.
Spain led declines among major markets with a 38 percent fall, while the UK shrunk 36 percent.
Europe’s struggle to inoculate citizens from COVID-19 risks tainting automakers’ more upbeat forecasts for the year.
Shuttered showrooms, slow vaccination distribution and economic damage caused by the virus call into question the high expectations for earnings recovery, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michael Dean said.
Among the continent’s biggest automakers, deliveries for Renault SA fell the most at 29 percent, followed by Stellantis NV at 22 percent. Both manufacturers count the region as their most important sales hub.
Volkswagen AG fared marginally better with a 19 percent decline.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday signed a letter of intent with Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC), expressing an interest to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and invest in the latter’s Alaska LNG project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. Under the agreement, CPC is to participate in the project’s upstream gas investment to secure stable energy resources for Taiwan, the ministry said. The Alaska LNG project is jointly promoted by AGDC and major developer Glenfarne Group LLC, as Alaska plans to export up to 20 million tonnes of LNG annually from 2031. It involves constructing an 1,290km
NEXT GENERATION: The company also showcased automated machines, including a nursing robot called Nurabot, which is to enter service at a Taichung hospital this year Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) expects server revenue to exceed its iPhone revenue within two years, with the possibility of achieving this goal as early as this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said on Tuesday at Nvidia Corp’s annual technology conference in San Jose, California. AI would be the primary focus this year for the company, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), as rapidly advancing AI applications are driving up demand for AI servers, Liu said. The production and shipment of Nvidia’s GB200 chips and the anticipated launch of GB300 chips in the second half of the year would propel
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
RSS