Toyota reports July production record after assembly plant shutdown
Toyota Motor Corp reported a record month of production in July amid an easing of pandemic-induced supply chain snarl-ups and just a day after it closed all 14 of its assembly plants in Japan.
Global and overseas production at the world’s biggest carmaker rose 14.6 per cent last month to a monthly record of 809,400 as shortages in the supply of vital semiconductors continue to subside.
Worldwide sales also jumped 7.8 per cent to 859,506 units, with the carmaker citing “strong demand for electrified vehicles such as the Corolla and Tundra”.
It comes after Toyota was forced to shut down operations at all 14 of its assembly plants in Japan on Tuesday – resulting in an output loss of around13,000 cars – due to a computer-system breakdown.
Toyota told City PM at the time that the failure had resulted in an inability to “process parts orders”.
Production has since restarted but the company is yet to provide concrete details of what actually went wrong, although it has confirmed that the outage was not the result of a cybersecurity attack.
The chaos of the last few days has been a blot on an ongoing sales surge at the automotive giant, which has enjoyed strong demand and six straight months of growth in its worldwide sales – putting the woes of chip shortages during the pandemic firmly in the past.