AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)01/29 Report--

Toyota Motor will suspend production at its China plant until Feb. 9, Bloomberg reported. With the continued impact of pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus, the General Office of the State Council recently issued a notice to extend the Spring Festival holiday in 2020, for which a number of cars and 4S stores have postponed business production and business hours.

According to Toyota spokesman Maki Niimi,"Taking into account various factors, including local and regional government guidelines and the availability of parts, we have decided to suspend operations at our China plant until February 9 as of January 29." We will monitor developments closely and make further decisions on action from February 10."

Toyota, meanwhile, has restricted travel to Hubei Province, noting that no company employees remain in Wuhan. The official said that according to the guidelines of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Toyota employees have been allowed to cancel travel plans for China as much as possible.

Toyota will also be affected by delays in supply chain production due to the impact of the epidemic, but the person in charge said it was impossible to make a specific judgment because of the wide range of supply chain aspects involved.

Toyota, as one of the automobile enterprises with large sales growth in 2019, has accumulated sales volume of 1.6207 million vehicles in the whole year, with a year-on-year growth of 9%. The output of some of its models was originally relatively small. For example, Highlander and its luxury brand Lexus adopt the sales mode of fixed production by sales. If the production plan is postponed, Toyota's inventory will be further reduced, and the delivery time of models with less output will be delayed.

In addition to Toyota's postponed production plan, Dongfeng, Renault and other car companies located in Wuhan, Hubei Province, announced plans to postpone production. Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle was the first to announce the adjustment of production and operation plan, and its subordinate units delayed the production start-up time after the festival. Subsequently, Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle Supply Chain Management Department determined the specific production arrangement according to the production conditions. A Renault spokesman also said the company and Dongfeng Group's plant in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, would be shut down until February 9 and production would resume on February 10.

The epidemic prevention and control involved a number of dealer groups, including the largest automobile enterprises in China, such as Guanghui Automobile, Yongda Automobile Group, Hengxin Automobile Group and Baideli Group, and issued a suspension announcement for each store.

The "hardest hit area" of this new coronavirus pneumonia is located in Wuhan, Hubei Province, which is one of the four passenger car bases in China. It gathers five car series of the United States, Japan, France, Britain and China, becoming the city with the most complete car series in the national automobile industry layout. There are many automobile manufacturers and automobile parts manufacturers, including Shenlong, SAIC GM, Dongfeng Honda, etc. However, there are still some automobile enterprises that have not announced their production plans yet.

Faced with the impact of the overall industry decline experienced in 2019, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, a number of automobile enterprises and 4S stores responded to the call of the state to postpone production and business plans, and sales volume is expected to decline further in 2020. For this reason, the performance of the automobile industry this year may still not be optimistic.

In addition, on January 29, Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor (China) Investment Co., Ltd. announced that together with FAW Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. and GAC Toyota Motor Co., Ltd., they donated 10 million yuan through China Red Cross Foundation and other institutions to purchase medical supplies and support Wuhan and other areas to fight new coronavirus pneumonia. Including more than 30 automobile enterprises, the accumulated donation amount has exceeded 600 million yuan.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat