Nissan Begins Reopening Japanese Plants

With the supply chain heavily affected by the quake and tsunami which struck Japan on March 11, Japanese auto maker Nissan is slowly beginning to recover. Following more than a week of suspended production at several local facilities, Nissan announced today the reopening of some.

According to Nissan, most of its plants will be partially reopened this week. Yet, because of the problematic delivery of parts, these facilities will be working intermittently. Only one facility, the Iwaki engine plant, will continue to remain closed, because of the aftershocks that are preventing the repair of the damaged infrastructure.

“As the delivery of parts will still take some time to be reestablished, our plants, except for the Iwaki engine plant, will be partially operational. As for the Iwaki engine plant, with aftershocks still heavily impacting the region and infrastructure reestablishment still continuing, restoration is expected to take longer than the other plants,” says Nissan.

The following Nissan plants will resume work on Monday, March 21, with the production limited at overseas manufacturing and repair parts (production of vehicles is expected to be resumed on March 24): Oppama Plant, Tochigi Plant, Kyushu Plant, Yokohama Plant, Nissan Shatai.

Separately, in an attempt to calm the panic that seems to have come over some of its US customers, Nissan said today that it would begin monitoring the radiation levels coming from the vehicles it will be exporting to the US.

However, some specialists say that this measure is not necessary, given the fact that the radiation levels in cars are low or non-existent and government prevention measures are already in place as part of the anti-terrorism measures in US ports.