Toyota Motor Corp ceases production at 6 auto plants following explosion at parts supplier: Report

Toyota Motor Corp has suspended operations at 6 plants in Japan on the back of a blast at a factory run by one of its component suppliers, Bloomberg noted. 

The explosion occurred Monday, October 16 at Chuo Spring Co.’s factory in Aichi prefecture, where vehicle suspension coils are made for a number of Japanese carmakers. One employee was hospitalised and another treated for slight injuries, the supplier said Tuesday.

This is deemed the largest domestic production halt since August, when it was forced to shut down its 14 domestic plants for one day due to defects in the manufacturing system. 

Toyota refrained from innforming how many production units will be affected because of the latest incident, but said it will decide later on Tuesday what happens next, BLoomberg reported. 

The Japanese carmaker said operations at 10 manufacturing lines across 6 facilities in Japan will be halted. Toyota Auto Body’s Yoshiwara and Inabe plants as well as some production lines have been offline since Monday evening, while the Takaoka and Tsutsumi plants were stopped Tuesday morning, the newswire stated. 

In February 2022, Toyota had to shut all 14 of its domestic plants after one of its suppliers was subjected to a ransomware attack. It took several days for operations to recover, and the incident impacted about 5% of Toyota’s output for the month. Prior to that, the carmaker saw shutdowns during the pandemic due to infections and supply chain outages.