Tsunami cancels Toyota overtime in U.S., threatens supplies of luxury and high-mileage models

Toyota halted overtime at its U.S. factories to conserve Japan-supplied components due to the natural disaster which wiped out northeastern Japan. Many Japanese automobile company still relies on many Japanese made parts despite the fact that many of their model are driven by the Americans.

It's "too early to say" how long it would take for the tsunami shutdowns in Japan to hurt inventories of cars and parts in the U.S., but "it's a long supply chain" from Japan across the Pacific Ocean to U.S. shores, says Javier Moreno, spokesman for Toyota's corporate operations in the U.S. If Toyota were to keep running all U.S. factories on overtime and used up available components, it would take weeks to refill the parts pipeline.
Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Suzuki, Subaru and Mitsubishi have closed all their plants in Japan for varying periods, from another day to several days, and possibly well into next week, to repair damage and because tsunami damage has caused power blackouts.
One possible effect on the U.S. market -- shortages of premium vehicles and fuel-sippers. The luxury cars almost all come from Japan, as do many of the favored high-mileage vehicles, such as Toyota Prius and Yaris and Honda's Fit, and its Insight and CR-Z hybrids.

2011 earthquake/tsunami disaster in Sendai, Japan is already known as the biggest crisis in Japan since World War II. For being one of the economic power holder, Japan's crisis is affecting many other countries around the world. Everyone knows that Japan is powerful when it comes to the automobile industry. And now, that this natural disaster happened, the affect to America has become more visible.