Toyota production 'at record levels' company says, and Australia is a priority

Toyota production is now at record levels despite ongoing supply chain issues, Wheels understands.

Speaking at the launch of the new 2023 Toyota GR86 this week, Sean Hanley, Vice President of Sales and Marketing in Australia, said that though production had been hampered overseas throughout this year, Australia’s positioning as seventh biggest market worldwide had helped secure allocation.

“Toyota Australia has enjoyed a market share greater than 20 per cent for 11 of the last 12 months and 21 of the last 24 months,” Hanley told us.

“And while year-to-date at the end of August the rest of the industry was down 2.1 per cent, Toyota's sales were up 3.2 per cent – and we’ve now been able to increase deliveries for this year.

"Over the last two-and-a-half years, Toyota has applied multiple measures to strengthen the supply chain and has prioritised production of high demand models. While this is an evolving situation, my assessment is that those measures are having a positive impact."

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So far this year Toyota has sold 161,558 vehicles locally compared with 156,555 by the same point in 2021. But delivery delays remain an issue, and overall, according to Price My Car, the average wait in July for a Toyota was 251 days – compared to 172 days in January.

The quickest to get hold of is the Kluger large SUV at 117 days, followed by the Camry sedan with a 148 day average wait and HiAce van with a 150 day delay.

The worst affected is Australia's most popular SUV, the mid-sized RAV4 – which buyers have to wait, on average, 339 days for – and the LandCruiser 300, which has a 280 day delay.

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The long waits come off the back of a number of key problems for Toyota happening overseas throughout the year.

The Japanese firm was forced to suspend production at its plant in Chengdu, China, in August as severe power restrictions hit the region due to its worst heatwave in 60 years.

And Toyota had already twice this year prior to that cut its global production targets and cancelled new orders of vehicles – once in June when it slashed a further 50,000 units from its global production forecast, citing semiconductor supply issues and parts-supply disruptions, and again in July when it suspended production at its Motomichi plant and shuttered its Takaoka facility for a fortnight.