Typhoon Shanshan Piles More Production Woes Onto Toyota

Toyota’s production woes continue as it is forced to shut down its factories in Japan while Typhoon Shanshan batters the southern regions of the island nation.

The automaker’s 14 plants in the path of the severe typhoon are closed for at least three days to protect the workforce and because of widespread power outages caused by the storm. A total of 28 assembly lines are expected to remain silent until the end of the working week.

While other Japanese automakers, including Nissan, are also forced to halt production, for Toyota the storm pours more stress on its production volumes with figures for July revealing a sixth consecutive month of declining global output.

This follows on from the vehicle safety certification scandal in Japan that sees Toyota's Corolla Fielder, Corolla Axio and Yaris Cross all out of production until at least next month along with a halt in production of its Daihatsu compact car unit.

Toyota’s production output for July slid 1% compared to the same month a year earlier to 804,610 vehicles, with production in China down 6% and Thailand falling 13%.

U.S. sales fell 5% owing to fewer sales days than last year and a production and delivery suspension of the Grand Highlander and Lexus TX SUVs because of an airbag issue.