#yen

Aside from holding onto its global sales crown for another year, Toyota is also doing well at the bank thanks to a weaker yen.

As the yen weakened against the dollar for a second consecutive year, Honda, Nissan and Toyota all set production records in their North American plants in 2013, according to Automotive News.

Bloomberg is reporting that Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corp. and scion of its founding family said that a slowdown in emerging markets and uncertainty over demand in both China and the Japanese home market makes 2014 “unpredictable”.

Ford has long been at the forefront of the currency debate, claiming currency manipulation when the yen went to levels that nearly killed the Japanese auto industry, and shouting “currency manipulation” now that the yen is back to normal levels. Now, Ford itself experiences the devastating effects of changing exchange rates: Ford is shutting down all its manufacturing operations in Australia. The reason: A strong Australian dollar. Says Reuters:

Of course, Carlos Ghosn did not miss this opportunity to talk about his most favorite topic: The value of the yen. As last Friday, the CEO of Renault and Nissan still does not want to hear talk of a low yen. Ghosn says the Japanese currency “is coming back to normal levels,” and as far as Ghosn is concerned, the yen still has some ways to go. Even if this freaks-out the CEO of Ford.

Jac Nasser, the former head of Ford, is warning that Australia’s car industry has passed the point of no return, and expects to see it die within the next few years.

The retreating yen allowed Honda and Mazda to report bigger profits for the last quarter of their April to March fiscal year. Now the two are faced with a new problem, one that will also be shared by its Japanese peers: Higher costs of badly needed foreign investments.

A weak yen and a slew of new models has Mazda within sight of profitability. With Mazda heavily dependent on exports, the yen’s 16 percent decrease in value relative to the U.S. dollar could not have come at a better time for Mazda, as it readies a whole slate of new products for sale.

Honda is hoping that the next-generation Fit subcompact will see its volume nearly triple, going from 64,000 units per year to 200,000 by 2016.

The strong yen is putting a major crimp on auto maker profits, and now, Japan’s auto lobby is asking the government to do something about it.

Isuzu is joining the “let’s flee Japan and the rising yen” bandwagon, and their latest venture involves assembling export-bound trucks in Saudi Arabia.

Honda is shifting production of the Civic Hybrid out of Japan and over to the United States, as part of a plan to boost their Indiana assembly plant.

Subaru’s failed relationship with China hasn’t burdened Subaru with too much baggage; the automaker is already moving on, planning to expand its Indiana plant to build more Legacy and Outback models.

With the closure of Japan’s last operating nuclear power plant hitting the news over the weekend, people asked me what that means for Japan’s auto industry. My answer: Nothing. The shutdown of the first nukes on March 11 a year ago was much more dangerous than the long scheduled downing of the last. Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn sees a much bigger danger: the power of the yen. The high yen at the currency exchange. And higher yen numbers on the electricity bill.

Today, Nissan had invited distinguished guests, from the Governor of Kanagawa province all the way to the chief of the local fire department, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Nissan Technical Center. Nissan’s main R&D hub is a city of 9,500, nestled into the foothills of Mount Fuji and surrounded by hills that keep it away from prying eyes. To get there, you must drive through a tunnel. Let’s see what we find here …