Toyota expects U.S. production to fully recover by September

2011-06-17

Production at Toyota Motor Corp.'s U.S. plants is expected to return to pre-quake levels in September, the automaker said Thursday. "Production is recovering earlier than originally anticipated following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan," Toyota said in a statement. Toyota has been scrambling to restore production since the quake and tsunami brought its manufacturing operations to a near halt in Japan and damaged and destroyed many suppliers. In the United States, as dealers ran low on vehicle inventories, Toyota's sales fell 33.4 percent in May, reducing its market share to 10.2 percent, the lowest level since 2002, according to Santa Monica, Calif.-based auto research firm Edmunds.com. The automaker is now offering sales incentives in the United States, even for vehicles that aren't in stock, to retain customers. Toyota also is counting on the launches of new Prius hybrid cars and a redesigned midsize Camry sedan to boost sales, Senior Managing Officer Takahiko Ijichi told analysts last Friday. Under normal circumstances, around two-thirds of the vehicles Toyota sells in the United States are produced in North America. Toyota has resumed full production since June 6 of eight of the 12 models it builds in North America, including the Avalon, built at the Georgetown, Ky., plant. "After September, we will focus on making up lost production as much as possible," said Steve St. Angelo, executive vice president for North American manufacturing and engineering. "Our team members and suppliers here and in Japan have worked tirelessly to get us back to 100 percent," he said. Japan's largest automaker has been able to restore output faster than it originally expected, company officials have said. But Ijichi told analysts that production at all Toyota facilities worldwide might not return to pre-quake levels until November. Ijichi said Toyota estimated the financial impact of the earthquake and its aftermath at 360 billion yen, or $4.4 billion. Honda Motor Co., Japan's third-largest automaker, has said it expects to resume normal production in North America of all models, except the redesigned Civic compact, in August. Honda was launching the new Civic compact when the earthquake struck. It said Civic production in North America would reach full speed in the fall. CHRISTINE TIERNEY / The Detroit News