GM halts production at one plant, joining Japanese carmakers

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A shortage of parts from Japan will force General Motors Co. to halt production at its pickup plant in Shreveport, La., next week, the company said Thursday.

It’s the first time a U.S.-based automaker will stop production in North America over parts shortages caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Toyota Motor Co. and Subaru have already slowed North American production to conserve parts that they normally import from that nation.

GM makes two compact pickups at its Shreveport plant, the GMC Canyon and Chevrolet Colorado. Both use a five-speed manual transmission made by Japanese supplier Aisn Seiki Co, which has halted production in Japan and suspended overtime in North America.

GM’s other North American plants haven’t been affected so far.

GM said it will resume production as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the company has enough of the trucks in inventory that it would take more than two months to sell them all. The trucks could be at the plant, en route to showrooms or on dealer lots.

Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC said their plants haven’t been affected by shortages.

Toyota says it shut down production until Tuesday. Honda remains closed and hasn’t said when its plants will restart. A shipment of more than 1,000 Nissan and Infiniti cars that was headed to the United States was destroyed in the tsunami. At least one hybrid battery maker is shut down, threatening supplies of hybrid cars.

The disaster in Japan could slow shipments of popular cars like Toyota’s Prius to auto lots. And many dealers are already taking advantage of expected shortages to raise prices.

Buyers will now typically have to pay sticker prices, instead of enjoying discounts that had been the norm for small cars and hybrids imported from Japan. Besides the Prius, models that suddenly cost more include Honda’s Insight, Fit and CR-V; Toyota’s Yaris; and several Acuras and Infinitis.

Small cars such as the Yaris, with a $12,955 sticker price for a base model, and the Honda Insight, priced at $18,200, are losing their typical discounts of 5 percent to 10 percent.

The price increases “will last weeks, if not months,” says Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends and insights for TrueCar.com, a website that tracks what cars sell for at dealerships.

AP