TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota, Nissan, Honda and other Japanese carmakers fought Monday to assess the impact of a fire at a Renesas Electronics car chip factory that could aggravate a global shortage of semiconductors.
“We are collecting information and trying to see if this will affect us or not,” a Honda spokesman said. Other carmakers, including Toyota and Nissan, said they were also assessing the situation.
The effect on carmakers could spread beyond Japan to other car companies in Europe and the United States, as Renesas has an overall share of 30% of the microcontroller chip used in cars.
Renesas said it would take at least a month to resume production on a 300mm line of wafers at its plant in Naka, northeastern Japan, after a power outage caused the cars to catch fire on Friday and spew smoke into sensitive clean room.
Two thirds of the production of the affected line is car chips. The company also has a 200 mm wafer line at the Naka plant, which has not been affected.
Concerns about the impact of the fire on production caused the car shares to slip, the big three, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, closing with over 3.3%. Renesas shares fell by up to 5.5% and ended 4.9% lower. The Topix benchmark fell by almost 1%.
“It will probably take more than a month to return to normal supply. Given this, even Toyota will face very unstable production in April and May, ”said Seiji Sugiura, a senior analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute. “I think Honda, Nissan and other manufacturers will also face a difficult situation.”
Semiconductors, such as those manufactured by Renesas, are widely used in cars, including to monitor engine performance, to manage steering or automatic windows, and for sensors used in parking and entertainment systems.
Nissan and Honda have already been forced to cut production plans due to the chip shortage resulting from growing demand from consumer electronics manufacturers and the unexpected return of car sales due to a decline in the first months of the coronavirus pandemic.
Toyota, which ensured that parts suppliers had sufficient stocks of chips, has fared better so far.
“It could take three months or even half a year for a full recovery,” said Akira Minamikawa, an analyst at technology research firm Omdia. “This is when chip stocks are down, so the impact will be significant,” he added.
GOVT PROMISE HELP
Renesas said its customers, who are mostly car parts manufacturers, not car companies, will begin to see chip deliveries fall in about a month. The company declined to say which car caught fire due to the electrical failure or which company produced it.
The Japanese government has promised aid to the car industry.
“We will try hard to help the Naka plant achieve a speedy restoration, helping it to quickly acquire alternative production equipment,” Cabinet Chief Secretary Katsunobu Kato said on Monday.
The latest incident at the Naka plant comes after an earthquake shut down production for three days last month and forced Renesas to continue to deplete chip stocks to keep up with orders.
The factory was closed for three months in 2011 following a deadly earthquake that devastated the northeast coast of Japan.
Reporting by Maki Shiraki, Eimi Yamamitsu and Noriyuki Hirata; Written by Tim Kelly; Edited by Muralikumar Anantharaman