The world’s largest carmaker Toyota can no longer avoid cutting its production forecast for the year due to a lack of electronic chips. Because many semiconductors are still missing, production in November is likely to be just 800,000 vehicles – this means that production in the current fiscal year (end of March) will also fall below the around 9.7 million units previously targeted, the VW competitor announced on Friday.
The Japanese company, based in the city of Toyota, had had to reduce monthly production several times in the past few months, but had retained the annual target so far. In November, production on numerous lines had to be temporarily interrupted because parts were missing.
Whether Toyota before Volkswagen-Group remains the world’s largest carmaker in this calendar year could be exciting again. Despite the previous decline, the Wolfsburg-based company is planning an increase in deliveries of 5 to 10 percent this year – that would be almost 9.8 million vehicles at the top end. However, even after nine months, VW was behind Toyota with its sales of almost 6.1 million units – the Japanese had already sold almost 6.3 million vehicles after August since the beginning of the year.
In Europe, the car market has recently recovered, but after nine months it is still below the previous year’s sales despite recent growth. Car manufacturers around the world will probably still have to struggle with a lack of chips in the coming year, as a study recently assessed further developments. This should primarily affect the production of electric cars, which have an average of between 5,000 and 7,000 chips in standard models.