AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)10/17 Report--

On October 17, Toyota announced that some of its vehicle assembly plants would be shut down from October 16 due to an explosion at an auto parts factory in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, Nikkei Chinese website reported. Toyota parts procurement stalled.

It is understood that the above auto parts supplier Chuo Spring is located in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, the plant produces car suspension coils for a number of Japanese automakers. The explosion occurred at around 00:15 on October 16, resulting in two employees who were slightly injured, one of whom has been hospitalized and the other being treated for minor injuries. Chuo Spring said the police and fire department are currently investigating.

Toyota has 14 complete vehicle factories in Japan, with a total of 28 production lines. Reported that on the evening of October 16, Toyota car body Yoshihara plant (Toyota City) and Fujisong plant (Aichi Prefecture Jiagu City) a total of three production lines have been shut down. Starting from the 17th, the scope of the shutdown expanded to Toyota's Takaoka plant and Takaoka plant (Toyota City) and other six plants a total of 10 production lines, Toyota Takaoka plant and other six factories a total of 10 production lines have been suspended.

Later this afternoon, a Toyota spokesman said that Toyota will suspend 11 production lines at seven Japanese factories and expand the scope of production suspension on the 18th as the supply of the parts suppliers continues to be affected by the explosion.

As of press time, Toyota officials did not respond to the news, did not say which models were affected, and it is not clear what impact the accident will have on Toyota's production and sales.

In recent months, Toyota's domestic plants in Japan have frequently shut down production due to external factors. On Sept. 26, Japanese government officials said that due to the typhoon, car production decreased in August and Toyota plant production was suspended. Toyota also had a massive production shutdown in August.

On the morning of August 29, a total of 12 of Toyota's 14 plants in Japan were suspended due to suspected system failure, involving a total of 25 production lines. Starting from the afternoon of the 29th, the shutdown will be extended to all 14 vehicle factories, with a total of 28 production lines. In other words, all Toyota plants in Japan have stopped production. On Sept. 6, Toyota responded on its website to the reasons for the shutdown of 14 factories in Japan. Toyota said the previous shutdown was due to insufficient data storage disk space during the maintenance of the system server, not a cyber attack.

At the time, Toyota said it had identified the cause through the verification of the scenario, confirming that the failure was not caused by a cyber attack, and apologized, and Toyota promised to improve its system maintenance procedures to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents.

At the beginning of this year, Toyota expected a production target of about 9.5 million-10.6 million vehicles in 2023, but production was uncertain due to global chip shortages, when Toyota pointed out that final production could be cut by 10 per cent. But thanks to semiconductor supply problems and the relief of COVID-19, Toyota has informed its major parts suppliers of its latest production target. Toyota has set the global production of the "Toyota and Lexus" brand at 10.2 million vehicles in 2023. This production will increase by 10% over 2022, and if nothing happens, it will significantly set an all-time high of 9.05 million vehicles in 2019.

From January to August 2023, Toyota sold 6.6504 million vehicles worldwide, up 6.01 per cent from a year earlier, according to data. Among them, sales in the domestic market in Japan were 1.1398 million, up 34.61% from the same period last year, while sales in overseas markets were 5.5106 million, up 1.55% from the same period last year. In terms of production, Toyota produced a total of 6.5019 million vehicles worldwide from January to August 2023, an increase of 11.43% over the same period last year. Among them, the Japanese local market produced a total of 2.1901 million vehicles, an increase of 29.63% over the same period last year, and overseas markets produced a total of 4.3119 million vehicles, an increase of 4.02% over the same period last year.

Toyota explained that the growth of Toyota's global production and sales data was mainly due to the supply of semiconductors and the easing of COVID-19. According to Toyota's medium-term production plan, Toyota expects to produce about 10.7 million vehicles worldwide next year and about 11 million by 2025, of which production in Japan's domestic market will gradually rise to more than 3.5 million by 2025.

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