Detroit, MI, United States (AHN) – Toyota announced Tuesday that it would slash its North American production by 75 percent in the next six weeks. The production reductionis due to limited supplies of Japanese manufactured components.
Toyota’s North American facilities produce about 70 percent of Toyota vehicles sold in the continent.
Because of the setback there will be fewer new Camry, Corolla sedans and RAV4 crossovers available on dealer lots in spring. The manufacturing plants will be closed on Monday and Friday and run half of normal capacity from Tuesday to Thursday until June 3.
Toyota will also close for one week in May to coincide with the observation of Memorial Day in the U.S. and Victoria Day in Canada.
Despite the reduced production, the car firm’s 25,000 workers will not be affected. The will use the time for training and plant improvements.
Competitors General Motors and Volkswagen are taking advantage of the slowdown of Japanese carmakers to boost vehicle sales in China, which could threaten Toyota’s position as the number one vehicle manufacturer.
GM announced at the Shanghai auto show that it plans to double sales in China to 5 million vehicles by 2015, while Volkswagen plans to overtake industry-wide sales growth by up to 12 percent.
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April 20th, 2011 
davidguide 
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