Toyota will pause production at two plants in Japan next month due to the ongoing semiconductor shortage.
The car manufacturer has confirmed that it will suspend operations on three production lines at two Japanese factories. At the company’s Iwate factory, one production line for the C-HR will be shut down for a total of eight days from June 7 while another line for the Yaris and Yaris Cross will be halted for five days from June 7th.
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From that same date, one production line at Toyota’s Miyagi Prefecture facility that also produces the Yaris Cross will be halted for three days. This marks the first time that Toyota has had to halt any of its domestic production due to the chip shortage. The pause in production will result in 20,000 fewer vehicles being produced, Nikkei Asia reports.
While many car manufacturers were hopeful that the chip shortage would resolve itself in a few months, that no longer seems to be the case. In fact, a recent forecast from AlixPartners suggests that the crisis will result in 3.9 million fewer vehicles being produced this year, costing automakers approximately $110 billion in revenue. What’s more, the second quarter is shaping up to be even worse than the first quarter. It seems unlikely that things will return to normal before 2022.
The cause for the shortage of chips in the automotive sector was triggered by a lack of demand for new vehicles in early 2020 and skyrocketing demand for consumer electronics.
