If you thought the risk of buying a flood car after Hurricane Katrina was serious, imagine having your health threatened just from being near the car. That’s exactly what’s been happening in Japan, where unsuspecting consumers are being sold dangerously radioactive cars that belonged to people living in Fukushima and the surrounding area after the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the prefecture’s nuclear power plant in March.

According to harbor authorities, 660 cars have been banned thus far for export because of unsafe radion levels. Rather than destroy the hazardous merchandise, some Japanese car dealers are simply swapping license plates to cover their stock’s origin according to The Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

One re-registered van was found to be emitting 110 microsieverts of radiation an hour— for perspective, the national limit for export to other countries is is 0.3 microsieverts an hour.

An unnamed dealer from the western city of Osaka bought the notorious vehicle at auction and decided to sell it despite the risk because he said he couldn’t afford to take the loss.

“I decontaminated repeatedly after the test and retested the filter of the air conditioner, the wipers and tires, replacing them thoroughly, but the radiation level dropped only to 30 microsieverts per hour,” he said.

[Source: FoxNews.com Autos]

Japan’s wealthy elite brought out their wallets this past weekend for a more than worthy cause; rebuilding the country they call home. At an event hosted by Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo and attended by Italian ambassador Vincenzo Petrone and Japanese Minister of Industry Banri Kaieda, a total of $724,000 was raised to help the disaster relief efforts in Japan.

With numerous items up for bidding at the auction, the big ticket item was the first Ferrari FF to be sold in the country, which went to Tokyo architect Masaharu Seno.

Held in the city of Ishinomaki, and attended by its mayor, the proceeds from the auction will be used to held build a new school for the children in the devastated city.

Mazda has officially announced that the assembly plants in Japan are back to normal operational levels. The Japanese automaker predicts that it will be able to achieve a domestic production volume of 900,000 units during the current fiscal year (April 2011- March 2012). The company is also predicting sales revenue of 2.19 trillion yen based on a global sales target of 1.305 million units during the current fiscal year.

David Klan, Senior Director of Sales, Marketing & Regional Operations at Mazda Canada Inc said:“Our return to normal production in Japan testifies to the courage and ingenuity of the Japanese people and our colleagues there,”. He also explained that, “This puts us in a strong position to sustain and grow our business in Canada, recognizing both the great line-up we have in showrooms today, and also the superb new vehicles coming with SKYACTIV Technology.”

Toyota and Honda plan to hire as many as 5,000 temporary workers in Japan for the first time in more than a year as the automotive industry recovers from the March 11 earthquake.

Toyota will be hiring between 3,000 and 4,000 temporary workers from mid-July as the company plans to increase production in October.

This is great news considering Japanese carmakers’ domestic production dropeed 60 percent in April as Toyota’s output in the country plunged 78 percent.

Honda will be hiring 1,000 temporary workers as the company plans to resume normal production numbers as well.

Toyota’s plants suffered a 50-percent production decline in April and May but are running at 90 percent capacity this month. The plan is to reach 100 percent of planned production levels by July.

“Hiring temporary workers shows that the problem with parts supply is being resolved and that the industry is on a solid recovery path,” explained Takeshi Miyao an analyst at the consulting company Carnorama in Tokyo. “There are a lot of back orders and without these additional workers, they won’t be able to catch up fast enough.”

Nissan has also begun hiring around 200 temporary workers to help restore normal production levels.

[Source: Automotive News]

The Japanese Earthquake disaster of March 11, 2011, has wreaked havoc all around the world and has affected Volkswagen by interrupting supply of their backup cameras. Consumers that want a rear view camera fitted to their VW may have to wait for shipments to resume.

The VW models affected include the CC Lux Plus, Lux Limited and VR6, all Touraeg models and the Tiguan SEL with premium navigation. On VW salesman said the German automaker is on the hunt for a new supplier. When Volkswagen was approached for an official statement, they said the matter was being investigated.

[Source: Autoblog]

North American Honda production will return to normal in August, earlier than expected, the company announced in a statement today.

The Japanese automaker has accelerated their recovery following the March 11th earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Every Honda model will resume regualar production in August, except the 2012 Civic. The company expects full production of the Civic to resume in the fall.

When the supply of parts from Japan improves, production will ramp up on a step-by-step, plant-by-plant, and model-by-model basis. Models including the 4-cylinder Accord, CR-V and Acura RDX, as well as all V-6 models including the Accord, Accord Crosstour, Odyssey, Pilot, Ridgeline, and the Acura TL, MDX and ZDX will return to 100 percent production.

“The light at the end of the tunnel is glowing brighter for us, represented by this significant improvement in our production situation,” said John Mendel, executive vice president of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. “Throughout this crisis, Honda has been fighting to achieve a speedy recovery, while maintaining a focus on our longer-term plans for continued growth in sales and production in order to meet the growing needs of our customers.”

Honda, which employs 13,400 in Ohio, said in a statement that it has managed to avoid any layoffs in any of its 14 plants in North America during the parts shortage.

[Source: Honda Press/ Columbus Dispatch]

The U.S National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has closed its investigation into the power steering system in the 2009-2010 Toyota Corolla with no defects found.

Furthermore, the NHTSA also said Toyota’s electronic throttles were not to blame for the 2009-2010 recall fiasco. However, Toyota is still dealing with major setbacks with the parts shortage caused by the Japanese earthquake disaster, which will undoubtedly hurt their efforts to rebound in the sales charts.

[Source: Autoblog]

Honda has scheduled the June 16 release of its all new Fit Shuttle. The new station-wagon-like variant of the popular Fit subcompact will be offered with both a regular 4-cylinder engine or a hybrid version, the Nikkei business daily reported.

Increased production at the Suzuka factory in Mie Prefecture began in early May and has progressed enough to support the June 16 release date.

Actual deliveries to customers are expected to begin in July, the paper said.

Honda is eager to launch the vehicle, three months after its planned debut on March 18, disrupted by the deadly earthquake.

[Source: Automotive News]