Parts shortage hammers Toyota again, halts vehicle production in Japan plants

The global auto industry has been suffering because of the supply chain crisis for more than a year, which emerged due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Several automakers were forced to temporarily pause their production of vehicles in different plants across the world due to the supply chain disruption. The list of affected automakers includes OEMs like Toyota, Ford, General Motors etc. Toyota has now again cut production of its vehicles in Japan due to the ongoing supply chain crisis.

The Japanese carmaker has decided to expand its production halts at some factories in Japan. The production halt will cut vehicle output by 14,000 units in December. The models that will be affected by this production halt will include Lexus cars as well as Land Cruiser. This comes as additional worry for the automaker as Land Cruiser's supply is already struggling to keep up with demand.

The latest blow comes at the same time as Toyota is trying to make up for prior major supply chain disruptions in countries like Vietnam and Malaysia. Reuters reports that Toyota had asked its suppliers to make up for lost production so the carmaker could produce an additional 97,000 vehicles by the end of this financial year. To meet this request some of Toyota's suppliers planned to run some additional weekend shifts as well.

Toyota had previously set an annual production target of 9.3 million vehicles by March 2022. However, due to the newly emerged crisis, the automaker later reduced the target to nine million vehicles. The auto brand claims that it aims to meet the revised target in this fiscal, but it will also keep a close watch on the evolving situation.

The microchip crisis has emerged as a major disruption in the auto parts market. Since last year, the crisis has been hitting the auto manufacturers. The global auto industry is estimating a production loss of millions of vehicles in this calenddue to the supply chain disruption this year.