Honda to Cut North America Output Due to Thailand Floods

 

Honda Motor Co. said it plans to cut output at six plants in the U.S. and Canada by about half from Nov. 2 through Nov. 10 because of floods in Thailand while telling dealers production may be curbed through late December.

Saturday overtime work will be canceled through November, Honda said in an e-mailed statement. The Tokyo-based company also said it would not assemble any vehicles on Nov. 11. The December sales date for the new 2012 CR-V may be delayed by “several weeks,” Honda said.

Normal production won’t resume until mid- to late-December, John Mendel, who leads Honda’s U.S. sales efforts, said in a separate e-mail for dealers.

Floods in Thailand covered more than 80 percent of the country since July. Automakers will produce 300,000 fewer vehicles than expected this year in Thailand, according to the nation’s automobile industry group. Honda today abandoned full- year profit forecasts because it can’t yet assess the financial impact of the floods.

Last year, 87 percent of the Honda and Acura vehicles sold in the U.S. were produced in Honda’s North American factories with parts and materials sourced in the region. Factories in Thailand supply “a few critical electronic parts,” Honda said in its public statement.

‘Spread Out’

Mendel said last week in an interview the company planned to make up about half of the 200,000 planned deliveries lost because of the March tsunami in Japan.

“Your planned production for November will be spread out between November, December and perhaps January depending upon our recovery efforts,” Mendel said in today’s dealer e-mail. “In addition, the planned production for December will be built in January, 2012.”

“We are confident about the finite time frame regarding the production disruption that will result from the situation in Thailand,” Mendel said in the dealer e-mail.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported about Mendel’s e- mail to dealers.

Honda’s American depositary receipts slid 8.1 percent to $29.90 at the close in New York.

–With assistance from Craig Trudell in Southfield, Michigan and Anna Mukai and Yuki Hagiwara in Tokyo. Editors: Bill Koenig, John Lear