Toyota Closes More Lines As New Car Demands Continue to Sink

Toyota has announced the possibility of shutting down one of their car manufacturing lines in light of the government’s latest scrappage scheme. Currently the plant manufacturers their Avensis and Auris models on two separate lines at their vehicle factory in Burnaston, Derbyshire. However, with significant drops in production demand during the recession, the company may have to scale back, manufacturing both models on the same line.

The company had recently announced intentions to begin manufacturing a hybrid model of the Auris at the same plant, as currently the plant is already operating well below its capacity of 285,000 vehicles per year. Toyota has already commissioned a feasibility study for switching to a single line for operation.

“If it was just a question of demand, moving to a single line would make sense,” a spokesman for the Japanese company’s UK’s manufacturing business said yesterday. “But it is very easy to say and more difficult to do, because there are practical issues around staffing and logistics and so on.”

Toyota has not announced a deadline for the decision, however the car company will be putting its staff on part-time working hours beginning in October. The decision will affect over 3,500 employees working at the facility.

Total new vehicle sales throughout the UK have declined 23% over the past year, and production of new vehicles has dropped to 48% less of what it was in previous fiscal years.

In May, after the government implemented “cash for bangers”, production and sales of new vehicles rose slightly, but the downturn is still on its way to recovery, and production demand is still now enough to justify Toyota’s plant operating at full capacity.

“The scrappage scheme has given us a slight bounce, but we don’t see that as sustainable over the long term,” the spokesman added.

Yesterday, Toyota had also announced that it would be outright closing line facilities in Tahara and Takaoka, two of their Japan-based manufacturing plants. The closure of these lines could reduce Toyota’s global production capacity by up to 1 million cars a year. 

Thanks to independent.co.uk for the above quotes, for more information on this story please view their website.