Honda wants to cut north American production by 50%, and they’re blaming the latest flooding in Thailand.
Output at all six of its factories in the United States and Canada will be cut in half from November 2 through 10. Also, they will stop all production in North America for one day on November 11.
Toyota announced they will cut overtime hours at all 13 north American factories, again because of a lack of parts caused by flooding in Thailand.
SAAB has new Chinese owners. The car maker was sold at a loss, after it filed for bankruptcy in September. SAAB hasn’t made any cars in its factory in Sweden, since April!
SAAB was originally offloaded by GM to Dutch company Spyker (now Swedish Automotive). Chinese distributor Pang Da Automobile Trade, and auto manufacturer Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile will pay about U.S.$142 million for SAAB.
SAAB joins Volvo in becoming a Chinese owned company. In 2010 Volvo was sold by Ford, also at a loss, to Chinese company called Geely.
SAAB sales in the U.S. suck, in September only 429 cars were sold. So far for the year 2011 only 4,612 cars have been sold. In 2003 SAAB sales in the U.S. were ten times that (40,000 cars)!
Toyota announced that if the supply problems in Japan continues it will be forced to close plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Toyota continues to delay restarts of its plants in Japan, for the same reason.
Toyota has already cut overtime work at its North American plants.
Today’s announcement is meant as a warning, so North American plant officials can prepare.