Nissan Motor said it would suspend production at two domestic plants for two days this week due to parts shortages following the powerful earthquake that hit northeastern Japan earlier this month, according to local reports.
The automaker planned to halt production at its Oppama and Shonan plants, the latter operated by its Nissan Shatai subsidiary, on Monday (22 February) and Tuesday, after key suppliers reported plant damage from the 7.3 magnitude earthquake. It was not revealed which components had been affected.
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Oppama has annual capacity of 240,000 vehicles per year and makes the Nissan Note and Sylphy passenger cars and the Leaf EV while Shonan makes mainly commercial vehicles.
This followed a three day closure last week by Toyota Motor of nine of its domestic plants because of earthquake damage sustained by a number of its component suppliers.
The earthquake was described locally as an aftershock of the devastating 9.0 magnitude earthquake 10 years earlier, which triggered a massive tsunami that devastated large coastal areas of north-eastern Japan, resulting in over 20,000 deaths.
The stoppage came as global automakers, including Toyota and Nissan, were struggling with worldwide shortages of semiconductors after global chip makers last year increased output allocations to other industries – particularly consumer electronics.
