Nissan May Halt North America Output After Delay in Receiving Engine Parts

Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third- largest carmaker, may halt production at plants in Tennessee and Mexico because of delays in receiving engine parts from Hitachi Ltd., the company said.

A decision on whether to halt output in North America hasn’t been made yet, Toshiyuki Shiga, Nissan’s chief operating officer, told reporters today in Yokohama, Japan, where the company is based. The carmaker will stop production at factories in Japan from July 14 to July 16 because of the parts delay, cutting output by 15,000 automobiles, Nissan said.

Engine control units made by Tokyo-based Hitachi couldn’t be delivered on time to Nissan because integrated circuits needed to make them were not available from a supplier, Hitachi said yesterday. Two other automakers were affected, Hitachi said, without naming them. Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., Japan’s two biggest automakers, said yesterday they weren’t affected.

Nissan fell 1.4 percent to 646 yen as of the 11 a.m. trading break in Tokyo.

To contact the reporter on this story: Makiko Kitamura in Tokyo at mkitamura1@bloomberg.net