Good news for Japanese auto dealers here in North America, as early reports indicate that the massive earthquake earlier this week in Japan won't disrupt deliveries here. "We have inventories for exports," said Honda spokeswoman Yasuko Matsuura. "We expect to be able to make up for lost production by the time we ship cars overseas."
"I don't see a massive impact from this, and if anything it's likely to have a bigger effect on products for the domestic Japanese market," said analyst Catherine Madden, who studies automakers' production plans for Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts...
estreka says:
08:46 AM, 07/20/07
One factor that hasn't been discussed is cost. If any factories turn out to be damaged in the quake, sticker prices might go up. Also, insurance premiums in Japan will probably go up, resulting in higher prices. They have to keep up with their overhead.
desmolicious says:
01:06 PM, 07/20/07
A huge "D'oh!" could be heard coming from Detroit.
crowb says:
02:12 PM, 07/20/07
I would think that insurance premiums wouldn't go up that much especially if you didn't have to file a claim. As I understood it, this quake affected a parts factory that supplied the Japanese manufacturers, but none of their actual assembly plants. The issue was supply chain disruption. Even if the factory gets a higher insurance premium as a result, it would be years before we saw that trickle down to the price of an automobile over here. These guys negotiate prices on parts with usually at least a year of price protection, and probably, more so that they can forecast production costs over the life of a particular model run before the next redesign. I would say you're more likely to see price increases for the more common reasons like the increased cost of raw materials. A big player like Toyota isn't going to get muscled around by a supplier because of a quake.