Ford, Toyota, and Honda are among a half-dozen automakers reporting that they will be forced to cancel some Chinese production, as extreme snowstorms have caused massive power shortages in that country.
Freezing temperatures, in concert with snow and ice covering much of central, eastern, and southern China are at the root of what is being termed the country’s “worst-ever” power shortage.
In addition to the power outages, the snowstorms have brought transportation to a crawl. In China’s Guangdong province, which many Japanese automaker facilities call home, more than 500,000 people have been stranded without mass transit or highway access.
Ford’s facilities in the city of Nanjing are planning on three days of downtime, where a weekend snowstorm disrupted traffic, and gas supplies. In a statement, Ford called the snowstorm, “the heaviest the city has experienced in half a century.”
+ Reuters: UPDATE 1-Heavy snow in China halts car production
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