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Toyota halts SUV production, boosts hybrids, as U.S. sales drop
The car company will start producing the popular Prius hybrid in this country because of changes in consumer demand.
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DETROIT - Toyota Motor Corp., the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that saw its U.S. sales double in the last decade, has come back down to earth.
Stung by rare double-digit sales declines and burdened by a growing inventory of slow-selling pickups, Toyota said Thursday it will start producing the Prius hybrid in the United States and will shut down truck and SUV production to meet changing consumer demands.
Toyota was the latest automaker to announce major production changes in response to lagging U.S. auto sales. Industrywide, sales have dropped 10 percent in the first six months of this year and are moving at their slowest pace in more than a decade. High gas prices have accelerated the drop in pickup and sport-utility vehicle sales faster than automakers had predicted, and they're scrambling to keep up with demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
"Toyota isn't immune to $4 gas and the recession in the housing market," said Erich Merkle, an analyst with Crowe Chizek and Co., a Grand Rapids accounting and consulting firm. "It's almost as though Toyota always defies gravity, and in this case, they don't."
Toyota said the moves won't affect full-time workers, who'll get training and do other projects during the shutdown. But the company is laying off around 700 temporary workers at the affected plants.
Toyota said it will start producing the Prius in late 2010 at a plant it is building in Blue Springs, Miss., northwest of Tupelo. Toyota already builds a hybrid version of the Camry sedan in Kentucky, but this will be the first time the Prius, on sale for more than a decade, will be built outside of Japan and China.
Prius sales fell 34 percent in June as Toyota failed to keep up with demand for the car, which gets 46 miles to the gallon. Priuses sit on the lot for just four or five days before they're sold, according to Tom Libby, senior director of industry analysis for the Power Information Network, a branch of J.D. Power and Associates. By contrast, the Toyota Tundra pickup is on the lot for 64 days before it is sold.
Toyota will suspend production of the Tundra pickup at its San Antonio truck plant and the Sequoia sport-utility vehicle at its Princeton, Ind., plant for three months starting Aug. 8 because of declining demand. Next spring, it will stop producing Tundras in Princeton and will consolidate all truck production in San Antonio.
The Princeton plant, which is about 20 miles north of Evansville, will now make the Highlander SUV, which originally was scheduled to be made in Mississippi. The Princeton plant will continue to make the Sienna minivan during the shutdown, Toyota spokesman Mike Goss said.
Toyota's U.S. sales fell 21 percent in June compared with the year before, an even steeper decline than the 18 percent industrywide slump.
Toyota's U.S. shares rose $1.12, or 1.2 percent, to $92.60.
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