Subaru Corp. announced a one-day stoppage at its two plants in Gunma, on July 16. Those lines churn out several key vehicles exported to the U.S., including the Forester, Crosstrek, BRZ and WRX — although a one-day interruption likely will have only limited impact.
Nissan will idle lines at several facilities in Japan next month, according to Reuters.
While declining to confirm specifics, a Nissan spokeswoman said Japan’s No. 3 automaker is “adjusting production due to this shortage and taking necessary actions to ensure recovery.” It will suspend its Tochigi plant in eastern Japan for three days and one of its Kyushu plants in southern Japan for two days. Meanwhile, it will operate its other Kyushu plant on only one shift for a period of time and keep operating its Oppama plant outside of Tokyo without a night shift.
Nissan has warned it will lose 500,000 units of output worldwide in the April-September period. But the company also said it expects to make up half of that shortfall later in the fiscal year.
It is now rationing chips to ensure supply for popular, new or profitable products.
For instance, the company suspended output of the Infiniti Q50 sedan from Japan this month to save chips for the newly launched QX55 crossover and the upcoming redesign of the QX60 crossover.
Nissan’s alliance partner Mitsubishi Motors Corp. also reportedly is trimming production.
It expects to cut 20,000 vehicles from its schedule at its Mizushima and Okazaki plants in Japan, where it makes minicars and the Outlander and Eclipse Cross crossovers, Japan’s Nikkei said. Mitsubishi expects a global hit of around 80,000 vehicles in the current fiscal year ending March 2022.
Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s largest automaker, has said it expects only minimal impact from the global microchip shortage.
But that doesn’t mean the Toyota Group is completely out of the woods. Even Daihatsu, Toyota’s minicar affiliate, was among those warning of downtime last week. It plans two days off in July at a plant that makes small cars for the Japan market.