Ford will soon be able to offer the Harley-Davidson F-150 in its signature Tuxedo Black again.
The automotive world is about to become a little more colorful thanks to the resumption of production at a plant in Onahama, Japan that produces some key paint pigments used by automakers around the world.
The plant, owned by the chemical giant Merck, is the only source for some key ingredients required to make such popular hues as Ford’s Tuxedo Black, a high-glass metallic hue offered on a variety of the maker’s products. Production was halted on March 11, when Japan was struck by a devastating earthquake and tsunami, followed by a crisis at a key nuclear power plant that has left the island nation struggling for electricity.
As a result of the shortage of Merck’s Xirallic pigment, Ford, Toyota and a number of other automakers around the world were forced to either stop taking orders for colors like Tuxedo Black or offer customers some alternatives.
Due to the challenges facing the northeast coast of Japan, repair work on the damaged Merck plant couldn’t begin until early April, about four weeks after the natural disaster. While production of Xirallic began today it could be weeks before the material reaches end users, meaning it will be some time before everything is back to normal and customers can expect to take delivery of vehicles using the pigment again.
“Our top priority is to ensure as soon as possible an uninterrupted supply of Xirallic pigments to our customers around the world,” said Peter Halas, Merck’s director of the Pigments & Cosmetics business unit at Merck, in a statement. “The resumption of production in Onahama is a major milestone toward this objective. I would like to thank our employees in Japan for their tremendous efforts.”
The Onahama plant is located in one of the areas hardest hit by the Japanese quake but it is outside the evacuation area around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Recognizing the area remains vulnerable to quakes and tsunamis, Merck has said it intends to establish a second plant to produce the popular pigment.
The Japanese disaster damaged or destroyed dozens of automotive parts plants and that has created a global crisis that has left virtually no major automaker untouched. General Motors, for example, had to briefly idle an assembly plant in Louisiana as well as two factories in Europe.
But Japanese makers have been the hardest hit, both at their home plants and at transplant facilities around the world. Toyota, for example, is producing at only about 30% of its capacity in North America and doesn’t expect to have its operations fully back to normal until the end of 2011.
A number of new product launches are being delayed or stretched out due to the crisis, including Toyota’s Prius V hybrid and Scion iQ microcar, as well as the new 2012 Honda Civic.
At least those vehicles will now have a full palette of colors to work with once production gets underway.