Toyota tells U.S. plants 'prepare to shut down'

[FBaggins]

Toyota's U.S. manufacturing arm is preparing for a possible shutdown because of parts shortages from Japan, a Toyota spokesman said. Word has gone out to all 13 of Toyota's factories in the United States, Canada and Mexico. This does not mean that the plants will stop working, Toyota spokesman Mike Goss said, but that they should be ready in case the need arises.

"We expect some kind of interruptions," he said.

While Toyota's car factories in Japan have stopped working since the March 11 earthquake in Japan, the automaker was able to resume production of some auto parts on March 17.

Toyota employs 25,000 manufacturing and R&D workers in North America.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Toyota-tells-US-plants-cnnm-1619359983.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[Poll_Blind]

2. Crazy idea! How about we beat some of those Tomahawk missiles into auto parts factories?

And keep them 25,000 jobs!

PB

[Atman]

3. +1000

:hi:

[Tansy_Gold]

7. I'll see your +1000 and raise it another +1000 n/t

[Yo_Mama]

4. yes, and GM shut a plant almost a week ago

Then GM said it was halting all non-essential spending.

This is not going to be good for the US economy.

A lot of externally manufactured parts are used in US car plants.

[itsrobert]

5. Looks like Toyota is trying to give priority to Japanese plants for parts

at the expense of closing US plants.

[FBaggins]

6. No... just the opposite.

They're giving priority to the plants that produce parts for export, and keeping closed the plants that produce things for internal consumption.

But there's only so much that they can do. Some of those parts manufacturers don't have the option at this point of resuming full production.

[Angry Dragon]

8. The bottom still tries to live through all the bubbles

while the top still has their champagne bubbles

[PVnRT]

9. Huh?

This has to do with plants shut down because of a natural disaster, not cost-cutting.

[LaurenG]

10. That was my take. They don't want to hurt their business anymore than we want them

to.

[Ordy116]

11. Good luck

But nobody will mention it in the media.