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Following the news of production cuts in March, Toyota, the world's largest automaker, adjusted its production plans again due to lack of cores and capacity problems. According to a number of media reports, as of March 11, Toyota announced a new production plan for April-June this year to some suppliers. Toyota plans to cut capacity in its Japanese home market by up to 20 per cent within three months from April, a Toyota spokesman said. Of these, capacity is expected to fall by 20 per cent to 150000 vehicles in April, by about 10 per cent to 100000 in May and by about 5 per cent to 50, 000 in June. The new production plan for April-June this year will be lowered to 2.5 million vehicles, reducing production by about 300000 vehicles compared with the original plan. Toyota is expected to produce about 2.8 million vehicles from April to June, but will increase by about 10 per cent year-on-year (2.26 million in April-June 2021).

According to relevant reports, Toyota's production cut again is to reduce the burden on suppliers. In addition, due to the current supply chain tension leading to a serious shortage of chips and other parts, Toyota hopes to review the risks of production planning three months in advance to ensure that suppliers can steadily prepare equipment and personnel, and give priority to ensuring safety and quality.

On March 9 this year, Toyota President Akio Toyoda revealed during the spring negotiations in 2022 that he would adjust the production plan for April-June, but the specific production plan and quantity were not announced. So far, Toyota officials have not responded to the news.

In fact, a few days ago, Toyota announced the temporary shutdown of two of its Japanese plants on March 9-10, which affected the production of about 3000 vehicles. According to reports, the Toyota shutdown is due to the indirect impact of cyber attacks on parts companies, and the acceptance of parts orders stagnated in the process of system repair. At the time, Toyota said it expected the plant to resume normal operations after March 11. Earlier, Toyota halted operations at all its factories in Japan after it was attacked by "blackmail software" at its parts supplier KOJIMA. Toyota's production of about 13000 vehicles was affected by the suspension of operations at all its factories in Japan, including 28 production lines at 14 plants, on March 1.

Toyota has repeatedly cut its production plans for the 2021 fiscal year (April 2021-March 2022) due to the epidemic and supply chain factors. The concern of the automobile industry has explained in detail in previous articles that Toyota has adjusted its production plan for fiscal year 2021. Toyota initially made a production plan for fiscal year 2021 for 9.3 million vehicles, but in the financial results released on February 9th, Toyota cut its annual production forecast for fiscal year 2021 by 6% (500000) to 8.5 million. During this period, Toyota also lowered its production target of 9.3 million vehicles to 9 million.

Although Toyota stressed as early as December 15 that Toyota's plant shutdown would not affect its annual production target of 9 million vehicles in fiscal 2021, Toyota's production plans were affected on a large scale not long after the news was announced. In February this year, Toyota announced that due to the suspension of production of 11 production lines at eight factories in Japan, including the Aichi Wancho plant in February, coupled with a shortage of semiconductors, Toyota expects production of new cars at home and abroad to be about 150000 fewer than planned in February, with global production of about 700000 vehicles, and its sales target for fiscal year 2021 will be lower than the previously announced forecast of 9 million vehicles. On February 15th, the media reported that Toyota will reduce production again in March due to supply chain factors, and Toyota will cut production by 100000 to 950000 vehicles, according to the original plan, in order to recover the production losses caused during the previous chip crisis. Toyota plans to increase production to its highest level in March. Toyota has said it expects to lose 100000 to 200000 vehicles in March due to chip supply bottlenecks after losing 140000 vehicles in January. Affected by the capacity reduction, Toyota's total production loss could be as high as 480000 vehicles from January to March this year. It is understood that after the March production adjustment, three production lines at Toyota's two plants in Japan will be affected, including Lexus NX, RX, UX crossover, ES sedan, C-HR compact crossover and Aqua hybrid.

According to the concerned statistics of the automobile industry, Toyota showed varying degrees of decline in global production and sales in January this year. In terms of production, Toyota's global production fell to 630891 vehicles in January 2022, down 15 per cent from a year earlier. Of this total, production in Japan's domestic market fell by 32 per cent to 162640 vehicles. In terms of sales, Toyota's global sales fell to 752155 in January 2022, down 2 per cent from a year earlier, while local sales in Japan fell 13 per cent to 110371 because of lagging production. In addition to the decline in Japan's home market, Toyota's Tianjin plant was shut down from January 10 to 21 due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic in Tianjin. Toyota's sales in China also fell against the backdrop of the shutdown, with figures showing that Toyota's new car sales in China fell 21.5 per cent year-on-year to 148800 in January 2022. Among them, Guangzhou Auto Toyota's January sales rose 0.8 per cent to 87500 vehicles from a year earlier, while FAW Toyota fell 46.0 per cent to 41000 vehicles, while Lexus, an imported luxury brand, sold only 17500 vehicles in January, down 27.9 per cent from a year earlier.

As fiscal year 2021 (April 2021-March 2022) approaches, more detailed earnings data are expected in the near future. With regard to the production plan for this year's new fiscal year 2022 (which ends March 2023), Toyota has previously proposed a global production target of 11 million vehicles, of course, Toyota also said that this goal is based on an increase of 2.5 million vehicles compared with 8.5 million in fiscal year 2021 when the semiconductor shortage problem is eliminated.

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