TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. may be hoping to rack up record vehicle output for this fiscal year. But the unrelenting pandemic and global supply chain chaos are steadily chipping away at its production targets, setting back the world's biggest automaker at least some 400,000 vehicles from its goal.
Toyota's latest dial-down came Wednesday, June 22, when the Japanese carmaker cut its original worldwide production schedule for the month of July by 50,000 vehicles to 800,000.
The slowdown expands Toyota's tally of lost production to about 400,000 vehicles in the fiscal year that started April 1.
Despite the fallback, Toyota said it is keeping its production goal unchanged at 9.7 million vehicles for the full fiscal year, an all-time high if actually achieved.
But the automaker has been missing the lower production targets as well. The pace suggests it may be hard for Toyota to reach its record goal.
It had planned to produce 3.2 million vehicles from January to April, for example, even after the production cuts. But the company manufactured only 2.93 million vehicles.
The full-year 9.7 million target represents output for only the Toyota and Lexus brands; it doesn't cover consolidated figures for the Daihatsu minicar or Hino truckmaking subsidiaries.
The objective represents a big leap forward from Toyota's current production record of 9.08 million vehicles, the volume it pumped out in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017.
For now, Toyota is holding to its schedule.