Toyota Motor Corp. has cut its projected factory production for June for the third time in as many weeks, lowering the monthly production target to around 750,000 units.
This marks the third time Toyota has reduced its production plan; it initially lowered the target by 50,000 cars to 850,000 cars on May 24, before further reducing it to 800,000 on May 27.
Toyota has been forced to revise its production targets with surprising regularity, issuing at least a dozen production adjustment bulletins this year. Stated reasons have included chip shortages and COVID outbreaks, both at plants and within suppliers.
The latest adjustment announcement on June 16 mentioned plans to suspend operations at five additional Japanese plants: Motomachi, Takaoka, Tahara, Iwate, and Yoshiwara. This is on top of the closures announced on May 27.
“At Toyota, we would like to apologize again for repeatedly adjusting our production plans due to parts shortages resulting from the spread of COVID-19, and for causing considerable inconvenience to our customers who have been waiting for vehicle delivery, suppliers, and other involved parties,” said TMC.
“We have decided to suspend operations at some of our domestic plants starting June 17 (Friday) due to low attendance caused by a COVID-19 outbreak at one of our suppliers and parts shortages caused by a defect in production equipment at another supplier. The suspension plan this time is in addition to the recent announcement.
“As it remains difficult to look to the future due to semiconductor shortages and the spread of COVID-19, there is a possibility that the production plan may be revised downward. However, we will closely examine parts supply to minimize sudden production declines and continue to do our utmost to deliver as many vehicles to our customers as possible as soon as possible.”
Vehicles affected by the latest production pauses include the bZ4x, GR Yaris, Toyota RAV4, C-HR, Yaris Cross, LandCruiser 70, and LandCruiser 300. It also impacts Lexus LC, NX, and LX.
All these vehicles are already subject to long waiting times (between one and two years in many cases, including around 18 months for the best-selling RAV4 hybrid), so this won’t help to smooth things over…
Toyota still says it expects to produce 9.7 million vehicles across the group in this Japanese fiscal year (ending March 31), down from an initial projection of 11 million vehicles when it thought the global supply chain would recover this year.
Losing around 1.3 million vehicles from the global allocation will send shockwaves through all key Toyota regions, notably across Australia, where the company commands over 20 percent market share.
To its credit, Toyota has kept industry stakeholders fairly well informed about its inventory situation compared to other brands, and we expect another localized update in the near future.
