Marketing Automotive

Toyota Motor Corp., hit hard by last March Japanese earthquake, announced it will take until end of 2011 for production to return to normal – overseas and at home. This announcement makes the world’s biggest automaker the first to publicly forecast a return to pre-quake levels and offers a peek at how long it may take other Japan carmakers to recover.

Akio Toyota, Toyota President, expects output overseas and in Japan to return to pre-quake levels in November or December. In Japan, output that currently hovers around 50 percent of the normal rate will start increasing in July as the final kinks in the supply chain get worked out. Factories in other countries will begin ramping up production from current levels in August.

Toyota recently has announced several production cuts for plants in the United States and Europe. Assembly plants there will operate for only three days a week. And when they are running, they will work at only half the normal pace. That brings total output to about 30 percent of pre-quake levels.

Like other Japanese automakers, Toyota has been suspending production amid global parts shortages triggered by the March 11 earthquake that hammered Japan’s supply chain. Toyota also announced this week that it would slash utilization of its plants in China to as low as 30 percent.

Akio Toyoda stressed that his comeback plan is still very fragile.

“Just last night in the area around Tokyo, we had another aftershock,” Toyoda said. “Because of such things, it can reverse the progress being made. So it is difficult to read what will happen.” Through the end of April alone, Toyota expects to lose 500,000 units globally.

Shinichi Sasaki, Executive Vice President in charge of purchasing, said models that share many commonized parts will be first returning to normal production.