GLOBALIZATION 2.O  

Toyota tests new EV pickup truck ahead of mass production in Thailand

OUTSOURCERS OUTSOURCING

Toyota pilots EV pickup trucks in key Thai market·Reuters

Thu, May 16, 2024,
By Devjyot Ghoshal

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Toyota Motor is testing the new battery-electric Hilux pickup truck to assess its performance in different conditions as the car maker prepares to manufacture the vehicle in Thailand by the end of 2025, an executive said on Thursday.

Pickup trucks make up more than half of total vehicle sales in Thailand, a critical market for Toyota that has been flooded by a wave of Chinese electric vehicle makers and where the Japanese auto giant has a large manufacturing base.

"Our intention is to be producing the Hilux BEV over here," Pras Ganesh, executive vice president of Toyota Motor Asia told Reuters on the sidelines of the Future Mobility Asia summit, referring to the battery-electric vehicle.

Ganesh declined to provide details on pricing or production volume for the Hilux BEV, which will be Toyota's first EV pickup truck offering.

Rival Japanese automaker Isuzu Motors also plans to manufacture its electric D-MAX pickup truck in Thailand, the Thai government said in March.

The vehicle will be primarily aimed at the Thai domestic market, but Ganesh said the automaker will also consider exporting the Hilux BEV.

Toyota is testing the Hilux BEV for multiple use cases in varying road and temperature conditions.

"The more range I have to put on it, the more battery I have to put on it, which means the weight of the vehicle also becomes significantly heavier, which means the loading can be much less," Ganesh said. "So 'Is it going to meet the customer's usage needs?' is always our biggest issue. We are always trying to understand what they do."

Trailing EV industry leaders Tesla and China's BYD, Toyota has profited from rising demand for hybrid vehicles as more consumers are embracing petrol-electric hybrids, the company's traditional strength.

Ganesh said Toyota expects hybrid sales to grow in Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, where it faces rising competition in the segment from cost-competitive rivals including Great Wall Motor.

In 2023, the company sold a little over 30,000 hybrid cars in Thailand, contributing about 11.5% of its overall vehicle sales in the country.

(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Exclusive-Toyota repeatedly halted Mexico plant after suppliers hit by worker shortage, sources say

The New York International Auto Show, in Manhattan, New York City

·Reuters

Fri, May 17, 2024,
By Maki Shiraki

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor was forced to repeatedly halt production at a Mexico plant in February and March after local labour shortages snarled output at suppliers, according to people with knowledge of the automaker's operations.

The stoppages, details of which were corroborated by documents from Toyota and suppliers reviewed by Reuters, illustrate a potential choke point for the world's top automaker, which plans to produce 10 million vehicles this year.


Toyota halted production for a total 19 days in February and March at its plant in Tijuana, Mexico, where it makes the Tacoma pick-up truck, according to two of the people. Technical issues at the plant were also a factor in the stoppage, they said.

Reuters spoke to four people at suppliers and Toyota. All of them declined to be identified because the information has not been made public.

Toyota is now working with some suppliers to ease the strain. Still, some parts makers are barely managing to keep production going because of the worker shortage, one of the people said.

The supply disruptions are the latest headache for the Japanese manufacturing giant, which has also been dealing with the fallout from a safety test certification scandal at subsidiary Daihatsu, as well as separate governance issues at two other group companies.

Those scandals have prompted the automaker to delay the start of the production of electric vehicles in the United States by six months to around June 2026, two of the people said. The EV delay was previously reported by Japanese media.

In response to questions from Reuters, Toyota Motor North America, the automaker's subsidiary, said: "Toyota's North American plants continue to face intermittent production delays due to supply chain disruptions. To minimise the impact, our teams are working diligently to do everything possible to lessen the inconvenience to our customers."

'FREQUENT HALTS'

In a letter to its North American supplier network in late April that was reviewed by Reuters, the automaker acknowledged the "frequent production halts" that were causing "inconvenience and concern".

At some suppliers, it said, regular employee turnover had lead to a decline in skills, while production capacity had decreased "due to issues with personnel, equipment and material supply".

The automaker requested details from parts makers on their challenges in North America and what kind of support they required.

Reuters was not able to determine whether the labour issues were hitting the suppliers of other Japanese automakers producing in the United States.

The supply-chain issues help explain some of Toyota's recent difficulties in the United States, even as it sees increased demand for vehicles, particularly hybrids. Toyota is expected to start selling a hybrid version of the Tacoma in the United States this year. "There were some operational issues involving parts makers, and it became clear in the fourth quarter that production was not going as expected," Yoichi Miyazaki, Toyota's chief financial officer, said at an earnings briefing last week, adding that the automaker was also impacted by one-time costs related to production changes.

Last week Toyota booked a 27.5 billion yen ($176 million) operating loss in North America for January-March, although overall, it delivered record earnings.

Toyota has forecast a 20% profit decline in the current financial year, citing investments in both suppliers and strategy.

Robust economic growth in North America and rising wages have meant higher turnover as workers leave jobs in heavy industry for those with better conditions.

"Employees are frequently changing jobs in search of higher salaries. It has become difficult to secure personnel, and we can no longer maintain the required production volume," said one of the sources, who works at a supplier.

Toyota sold more than 230,000 of the Tacoma in the United States last year, representing about 10% of its total sales in that market. Only the RAV4 and Camry were bigger sellers.

(Reporting by Maki Shiraki; Writing by Daniel Leussink; Editing by Nobuhiro Kubo, David Dolan and Tom Hogue)