Toyota takes another hit to production

Toyota will again suspend production at three of its Japanese plants next month, however this time the affected lines will only be inactive for a handful of days.

Specifically, production line two at the Takaoka Plant – Toyota RAV4 – will fall silent on December 2 and December 9 while production lines one and two at the Miyata Plant – Lexus NX, Lexus UX and Lexus ES – will be halted only on December 28.

Production line one of the Tahara Plant – Toyota Prado – will have four days of inactivity (December 1, 2, 9 and 16).

The announcement was accompanied by confirmation of a reduced FY23 production forecast, which has taken a 500,000-unit hit and dipped from 9.8 million to 9.2 million.

In a statement, the car-maker said: “We at Toyota would like to again apologise for the repeated adjustments to our production plan due to the parts shortage resulting from the spread of COVID-19, and for causing considerable inconvenience to our customers, who have been waiting for the delivery of vehicles, suppliers, and other parties concerned.”

Toyota said the planned global production volume for December is expected to be approximately 750,000 units (250,000 units in Japan and 500,000 units overseas).

“We will continue to closely examine the supply of parts and work with related parties to consider all possible measures to ensure that we can deliver as many vehicles to our customers at the earliest date,” the company said.

A spokesperson attributed the reduced FY23 production forecast to the ongoing “shortage of semi-conductors”.

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