This COULD Mean A Longer Wait For The Yaris
Paul Nolasco at Toyota sends us a message saying that Toyota has “decided to resume production at the Sagamihara Plant of Central Motor. Production is to start on April 11.”
Why should this impact the Yaris? Please bear with us.
It is too late to reach anyone at Toyota to find out the exact significance of the message. What follows is an educated guess until we can update you with firsthand information.
As previously reported, Toyota had wanted to move the JP domestic production of the Corolla from Sagamihara near Tokyo to the new plant in Ohira in Miyagi Prefecture. This move was planned for March. The tsunami intervened.
The Ohira plant is near the badly mauled port of Sendai. Last we heard was that the plant was cut off from vital gas supply which precluded a restart. End of March, Toyota decided to delay the relocation from Sagamihara “until April or later.”
Toyota was on record that it wanted to restart production in all (or most) plants by mid April. The fact that Toyota makes a point out of the restart of the Corolla production in its old place in Sagamihara COULD mean that the Ohira plant is down for longer. This also COULD mean that the Yaris production COULD be significantly delayed. The Yaris is built for export in the Ohira plant. Ever since a boatload of Yaris had been washed off the docks of Sendai by the tsunami, no Yaris shipments have left port.
Once again, this remains conjecture until we have received background. It is 7 p.m. in Tokyo as this is being typed, and everybody has gone home. We will update you once we know more.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I wish the Japanese people only the best, and that their rebuild is speedy. But the likelihood of fewer Toyotas is a blessing. Our roadways will be noticeably less vanilla. Their PR department now has something else to do besides putting out false propaganda to bury their rampant defect issues.
This is bad. There'd be less girly cars for dbags to be forced into once gas hits 5 bucks a gallon. More girly cars for Americans!