Toyota Peugeot Citroen Automobile (TPCA) in the Czech Republic said it had been affected by sub-suppliers in Thailand facing difficulties from the country’s flooding, but had enough stock to last its car assembly plant until the end of the month.
Thailand’s massive floods have severely impacted suppliers across the world as the country is a huge manufacturer of components such as electronics and hard drives, although TPCA remains coy on any specific model impact at its Czech Republic factory. The plant builds the jointly developed Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1 and Peugeot 107 A-segment city cars which are all but identical.
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The assembler based near Prague was not able to say exactly to what extent its component makers were affected as it was mainly sub-suppliers who have had challenges.
“Regarding sales, it is mainly sub-suppliers that are the problem,” a TPCA spokesman told just-auto from the TPCA’s headquarters in Kolin. “Currently we have stock until the end of this month – it is not something we can solve. We are helping them in some cases [to] search some additional sub-suppliers – it takes some time definitely in terms of quality to approve.
“Right now there is no negative impact because we still count until the end of the month and then it will be time for the Christmas shut-down, so for nearly half of December we will close the factory.”
The spokesman added information was not easy to come by from the affected regions in Thailand as many areas had been evacuated but that TPCA was in “very close contact” every day with suppliers.
TPCA has mainly been struck by disruption to electronic parts as Thailand is such a key country for such components, for example for audio systems.
A report from the Thai emergency operation centre for flood, storms, and landslide on 2 November showed 26 provinces were still suffering from floods and 427 people have died. The cabinet on 1 November was told the flooding situation had eased in 37 provinces.
However, Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Nakhon Pathom and Samut Sakhon were still facing severe floods in many areas.
