AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/03 Report--

Affected by the current situation, Japanese car brand Toyota announced today that its only factory in St. Petersburg, Russia, will stop production tomorrow and no longer export cars to Russia. "due to supply chain disruptions, Toyota Russia will stop production at its St. Petersburg plant from March 4 and has stopped importing cars until further notice," Toyota said in a statement. The St. Petersburg Toyota plant built about 80, 000 cars last year, mainly Camry and RAV4 for the Russian home market, with about 2600 workers, a fraction of Toyota's global production of 10.5 million cars.

Toyota does not have a plant in Ukraine, but stopped car sales in Ukraine on February 24 after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a land and air attack on Ukraine. Honda, another Japanese car brand, also stopped exporting products to Russia earlier. After the first round of negotiations, the war between Russia and Ukraine shows no sign of abating, Russian troops have entered more cities, and the military conflict between the two sides is still intensifying. Yesterday, members of the 11th emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly voted. Among the 193 members of the United Nations, 141 votes in favor, 5 votes against, and 35 abstentions, adopted a draft resolution on the situation in Ukraine, demanding that Russia withdraw its troops. The resolution is more to show the position of various countries in this war, and may not be effective in implementation.

The war has entered the seventh day, affected by the situation in Russia and Ukraine, in addition to the closure of Toyota's St. Petersburg plant, major car companies have also adjusted their production and sales arrangements one after another. Most European brands including Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, GM, BMW and Jaguar Land Rover have announced that they have stopped exporting and selling to Russia.

Renault worked deeply in the Russian market for many years, taking part in the restructuring of Volga AvtoVAZ, Russia's eldest son, in the early years, giving it the top spot in the Russian car market, with a market share of 38 per cent. Renault Russia, which currently has three vehicle equipment plants in Russia, announced that it would stop production from February 28 to March 5 due to border controls and logistics.

Germany's Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW announced this week that they would stop exporting cars to Russia. Some of Volkswagen's auto parts and cables come from Ukraine, and supply chain problems have halted production at two factories in Germany. Volkswagen is also the second highest brand in the Russian market. Volkswagen's Russian plant has a total production capacity of 118000 vehicles in 2021 and is still in normal production.

BMW sold 46800 cars at the top of the Russian luxury brand in 2021. BMW, which has been working with local Russian partners for more than 20 years, has just completed a new round of contract renewal until 2028 and is investing 350 million euros in plant expansion. BMW's Russian plant is in normal condition, but a BMW spokesman confirmed today that production at the Munich plant and Germany's Dingerfen plant will begin to stop next week.

GM and Ford closed plants in Ukraine two years ago, but Ford Russia has three local plants through a joint venture Ford-Soles, which is currently in normal operation.

Great Wall also has a plant in Russia, which produces Harvard F7, F7x and Harvard H9 models, with sales of 39000 in 2021. The other two Chinese brands Geely and Chery, whose sales figures are also close to Great Wall, have no special arrangements for the situation in Russia and Ukraine.

By comparison, the St. Petersburg Toyota plant has a small share of the entire Russian market, Toyota said. "in response to this crisis, our top priority is to ensure the safety of all team members and retail employees. And supply chain partners. Toyota said it was closely monitoring the development of the situation in Ukraine, was highly concerned about the safety of the Ukrainian people, and hoped to return to peace safely as soon as possible.

In addition to the impact of the war, 28 production lines at Toyota's 14 factories in Japan were suspended from March 1 to 2, an accident caused by a system failure at Kojima stamping Industries, a Toyota supplier. Kojima stamping Industry, a spare parts company based in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, said that during a network security review on Feb. 26, it was found that the company's server may have been implanted with a ransom computer "blackmail virus." The next day, Kojima decided to shut down the network service for antivirus recovery system processing, resulting in Toyota ordering system can not run. Kojima Industries, founded in 1950, is one of Toyota's first-tier suppliers, accounting for about 90% of the supply of Toyota interior accessories and power-related parts, as well as producing parts such as vehicle battery packs. Problems with the systems of big suppliers led to a complete shutdown of all Toyota plants in Japan, which had resumed production by yesterday.

The incident, hours after Japan pledged aid to Ukraine, cut Toyota production by about 13000 vehicles, or about 5 per cent of Toyota's monthly production in Japan. Toyota has shut down production at its Japanese plant several times since the second half of 2021 due to the epidemic and chip shortages, with one of the production lines suspended for 38 days at the longest. Affected by these reasons, Toyota reduced production by nearly 150000 vehicles last month, producing a total of 700000 vehicles. Toyota delivered a total of 10.4955 million vehicles worldwide in 2021, up 10.1% from a year earlier, according to previous global sales data released by Toyota.

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