Toyota to slow down expansion in the US

Top executives at Toyota are urging the auto maker to slow down factory expansion in the US. According to the Wall Street Journal, former Toyota Chairman Hiroshi Okuda and Shoichiro Toyoda, a member of Toyota’s founding family, that US sales may not stay up to par with the company’s capacity.

Both Okuda and Toyoda sit on Toyota’s board, say that Toyota has already built way too many factories in the US. Toyota’s spokesman, Tomomi Imai, said that the Japanese auto maker has no plans to built more US plants and is scaling back plans for the $1.3 billion Mississippi assembly plant it announced earlier this year.

The Mississippi plant originally called for an annual capacity of 200,000 units but now Toyota said it will only built 150,000 when it opens in 2010.

Toyota said that if sales continue to climb in the US, it will probably add a second assembly line to existing plants rather than open new ones.

 

Source: Reuters

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