Toyota Motor’s Global Production Capacity: Strengthening Output in the US and China in 2021

Toyota Motor’s global automobile production in 2020 decreased 12.8% from the previous year to 7.91 million units (based on FOURIN’s research, different from data announced by Toyota). Due to the spread of the new coronavirus infection, the operation of factories around the world was suspended in the first half of 2020. As a result, global factory utilization rate for the whole year decreased 12.3 pp (percentage points) to 76.3%. In China, where demand recovered sharply from April, the factory utilization rate increased 10.5 pp to 115.1%, showing a sharp increase in production. In the US, which is a major market of Toyota, the recovery in demand became apparent from September, factory utilization rate in North America rising to 93.7% at the end of September. However, for the full year, the US decreased 14.2 pp to 74.5% and Canada dropped 8.1 pp to 85.5.

Looking at domestic production, some factories were shut down from April 2020, utilization rate decreasing 14.1 pp from the previous year to 82.8%. Toyota used the shutdown period to overhaul old factory equipment. Thanks to the upgrade, Toyota improved productivity without increasing the number of employees in the latter half of 2020. It helped the automaker to recover production.

In 2021, Toyota is making efforts to increase production capacity in China and the United States. In China, GAC Toyota Motor started operation of a fourth production line with a production capacity of 200,000 units / year at the end of June 2021. The annual production capacity of Toyota’s other two plants in China, Tianjin FAW Toyota Motor and Sichuan FAW Toyota Motor is also planned to be raised in 2021. In the United States, the automaker will start operations of the Alabama Plant of Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A. in the latter half of 2021. The plant has a production capacity of 300,000 units / year which is equally divided between the two operators of the plant, Toyota and Mazda.