Toyota Reduces N.A. Production Forecast, Source Says
TOKYO - Toyota Motor Corp. lowered its output forecast for North America this year by 60,000 vehicles in the wake of its recall-driven production and sales suspension, a source at a group company told Reuters. The decline will be more than offset by an upward revision of 100,000 units in non-Japan markets, the person said. That would lift global production plans by about 1 percent to 7.57 million vehicles for 2010, the person said. The world's biggest automaker had told its suppliers in December that it planned to produce 7.49 million vehicles in the 2010 calendar year, but will notify them of the latest revision, the source told Reuters on Tuesday. The person declined to be identified because Toyota does not make those plans public. Fueled by subsidy-led demand for fuel-efficient cars in Japan, Toyota raised its domestic production plan by 40,000 units, the source said. The new output figure, which excludes minivehicle unit Daihatsu Motor Co. and truck maker Hino Motors Ltd., would represent a 19 percent jump from 2009. Toyota, like the rest of the industry, is counting on double-digit sales rises in China and India to make up for an expected fall in European car demand after government subsidies run out. Toyota's North American production at wholly owned plants increased 85 percent this year through three weeks of March as the industry rebounds from last year's weakest demand in almost 30 years. Toyota's U.S. sales through February fell 12 percent from year-earlier levels, dragged down by the controversy surrounding its unintended acceleration recalls, in a market that's up 10 percent.
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