Japan's Auto Industry Affected By Quake
- DETROIT( WWJ/AP) -The earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week could have a detrimental affect on Japan's economy.
Toyota, Honda, and Nissan have all announced they will stop all production in Japan, due to the extensive damage to suppliers' facilities and transportation networks throughout the area.
Katie Kerwin, Editor of Autobeat Daily tells WWJ,
"The Lexus and Infiniti lineups, the Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit small cars, the Prius, the Scions, a lot of these actually are, aside from the luxury ones, are their most fuel efficient vehicles, and the shortage of those vehicles coincide with extremely high gasoline prices, they could lose some of that market, here to the Detroit Three."
Kerwin also says there's another economic issue that could affect domestic automakers:
"One of the things that might get affected, actually, are the batteries used in hybrid and electric vehicles. A lot of those (batteries) come from Japanese companies, and to the extent that they can still make them and airlift them into the U-S, there's a possibility of blunting that problem, but its really hard to tell at this point".
Kerwin says Mazda plans to shut down its plants throughout Japan on Tuesday.
( The Associated Press Contributed To This Story)
