Japanese carmakers face shutdown crisis next month

Many Japanese joint venture carmakers are facing a lack of components inventory due to the severe Japan earthquake and nuclear crisis.

Joint ventures such as Dongfeng Nissan, Guangzhou Toyota, and Guangzhou Honda claimed that they will continue the production until mid-April. But they refused to make further predictions. And Honda has already declined all the orders in May. The 18 vehicle plants of Toyota may not resume production until April 11, according to the Japanese carmaker.

The 9.0-magnititude earthquake in Japan has destroyed the supply chain in Northeast Japan, which caused a lack of components of those auto enterprises.

The shortage of Japanese cars may also affect the car prices. "There are many price-reduction campaigns this month due to the depression of sales in the first two months. However, the price plunge will stop next month due to a lack of supply," said Cui Dongshu, vice secretary of China Passenger Car Association. Some Lexus dealers even increase the price by 2 percent.

However, local dealers are not that optimistic about the chance to increase price as they will "have to suffer more losses if missing market due to a lack of vehicle supply."