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Three weeks on, the biggest natural disaster in 100 years of Japanese history continues to take its toll on everyday life, including car production. We've spoken to the most popular Japanese carmakers to find out the latest.

Despite a number of key plant shutdowns, Toyota has now resumed production at its Kyushu plant, which builds the new Toyota Prius and Lexus CT200h for Japan, the UK and Europe.

Toyota UK has six weeks' stock for Japanese-built vehicles so it can currently fulfil any Toyota and Lexus orders. It helps that many Toyotas are built in the UK and Europe.

Meanwhile, some of Honda's Japanese plants have been either closed or are experiencing regular supply issues affecting the Accord, CR-Z and Jazz Hybrid. UK production at Honda's Swindon plant will continue as usual in April, but components shortages are expected after that, which will affect CR-V, Civic and Jazz models.

All Nissan plants except one are now back up and running. Despite 96 per cent of all Nissans sold in the UK coming from factories not in Japan, the greatest risk is component supplies.

Things have been made worse by Japan's Just In Time manufacturing philosophy that reduces inventory and limits storage costs, as well as its global dominance in the production of electrical components.

Japanese-sourced parts are limited and in the supply chain of numerous car brands including Jaguar (LCD screens for the Jaguar XF), Peugeot-Citroen (diesel engine sensors) and Ford (Electronics that go into dashboard displays).

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