ROBOT arms are whirring again. Nissan's engine factory in Iwaki, which was pummelled by the earthquake that struck Japan in March, returned to full operation on May 17th. Carlos Ghosn, the car firm's Brazilian-French boss, joined hundreds of workers in a rousing cheer. Yet despite heroic efforts to repair and rebuild, Japan's car industry is still crippled. And that could have global consequences. The disaster barely dented factories belonging to the big Japanese carmakers. (Nissan's plant in Iwaki was an exception.) But it ravaged the suppliers of critical parts and raw materials in north-eastern Japan. Toyota faces a shortage of 30 components. That is much better than the 500 it lacked shortly after the quake, but it only takes one missing part to bring an assembly line stuttering to a halt. Repair work continues apace. Factories that were shuttered are now running at half of usual production. Nissan hopes to return to normal in the early autumn; Toyota and Honda a bit later. Yet Toyota may be overtaken by America's General Motors (GM) as the world's biggest carmaker by volume this year (having stolen its crown in 2008). Germany's Volkswagen is hard on its tail, too. Nissan was advancing rapidly before the quake but Mr Ghosn now admits that it may lose market share this year. South Korean and American carmakers are benefiting from their Japanese rivals' travails. The American sales of Hyundai and Kia last month were up by 40% and 57%, respectively, from a year earlier. Detroit's big three carmakers gained 3.2 percentage points in market share from the previous month, having for once offered a line of small, green vehicles such as the Ford Focus and Chevrolet Volt. Japanese carmakers between them lost a massive 4.5 percentage points of market share. For Japanese car firms, the quake could not have struck at a worse time. Their home market has stalled. They were already struggling to hang on to market share in Europe. As the price of petrol soars, fuel-sipping Japanese cars would normally zoom past rivals, but drivers won't buy what the makers don't make. The shortage of parts has delayed the launch of several models, such as Toyota's iQ microcar and Prius V, plus Honda's 2012 Civic and its CR-V (a cross between a sports-utility vehicle . The shortage of Japanese cars has spurred American dealers to raise some prices by as much as $3,000, according to TrueCar.com, an industry website. The quake has affected non-Japanese carmakers, too, since many buy parts from Japan. GM has suffered interruptions in America and Europe. Chrysler could end up making 100,000 fewer vehicles. Ford told dealers to stop taking orders for some popular colours, such as "Tuxedo Black". (Any colour, it seems, as long as it's not black.) But overall, global capacity far outstrips demand. About 70m cars and light trucks will be sold this year, predicts IHS Automotive, a consultancy, but carmakers could produce 95m. That makes the struggle for market share especially brutal. Japanese firms are showing admirable solidarity. When car firms realised that eight factories belonging to Renasas, a crucial supplier of the microcontrollers that run a vehicle's electronics, had been damaged, they sent 2,500 of their own staff to help it restart. More than 1,000 aftershocks have slowed the recovery. Power is in short supply, albeit recovering. The strong yen hurts exports. Plans for Japan to join regional free-trade talks have sputtered. Japanese car firms were already shifting production away from Japan, to spread their risks and move closer to their customers. The quake will accelerate this process. Toyota's official goal is to assemble 45% of its cars at home, but Akio Toyoda, its boss, admits that: "We can't go on with just a desire to protect manufacturing in Japan." Nissan makes only 25% of its cars in Japan, and is shifting production to America for its Rogue and Infiniti JX models. The quake cost Toyota 100 billion ($1.2 billion), the most of any Japanese carmaker so far. Nissan lost less, for several reasons. It held more inventory, since it was ramping up production for China and America, notes Masataka Kunugimoto, an analyst at Nomura, an invesment bank. Its supply chain is more global, and it encourages more competition among its suppliers, rather than relying on long-term relationships. So when one supplier stumbles, others can pick up the slack. Nissan can tap suppliers to Renault, a French carmaker with which it shares parts, equity and a chief executive. At the Iwaki engine factory, Mr Ghosn was asked whether Nissan would press its Japanese suppliers to build plants overseas to protect against future disruptions. He dismissed the idea. All that really matters is that lone suppliers with only one plant should have a back-up plan, he said. The entire industry hopes they do.

Discuss the competition that will be faced by Japanese car industry when they are in international market. Would the Japanese car market structure change? Explain any FOUR (4) of these changes.