Nissan Motor Co will halt production at two domestic plants for two days next week due to a parts shortage caused by a powerful earthquake that hit northeastern Japan last week, sources close to the matter said.
Nissan will suspend output at its Oppama plant and Nissan Shatai Co, a group vehicle assembly company, will stop operations at its Shonan plant on Monday and Tuesday, the sources said. It is not immediately known what parts procurement has been disrupted.
The automaker joins Toyota Motor Corp in shutting production lines temporarily after the magnitude 7.3 quake hit late Saturday and disrupted their supply chains.
The temblor left more than 150 people injured and halted high-speed train services connecting the region with the Tokyo area.
The latest production disruption serves as another headache, as Toyota, Nissan and other global automakers are facing a chip supply crunch.
At the Oppama plant, Nissan produces the Note compact model and the Leaf electric vehicle among other models, while Nissan Shatai builds commercial vehicles at the Shonan plant.
The quake leaves Toyota in operation halts on 14 production lines at nine plants out of 28 lines at 15 plants in Japan for one to four days this week.
The world’s largest automaker by volume is not able to procure enough parts for suspension systems from Hitachi Astemo Ltd in Fukushima Prefecture after a plant of the supplier was damaged by the earthquake, according to people familiar with the matter.
© KYODO
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