Toyota overhauling US manufacturing strategy

Toyota Motor Co North America is reworking its U.S. manufacturing strategy to account for idle capacity and a shifting corporate priorities, including a desire to correct internal problems magnified by the industry's worst-ever downturn.

Yoshimi Inaba, Toyota's North American president, also told reporters on Monday the unprecedented restructuring of General Motors Corp and Chrysler Group were "good for the country", but saw no significant role for the Obama administration to help Toyota return to profitability.

"We should manage our own destiny", Inaba said. He would not, however, rule out that Toyota may at some point apply for Energy Department advanced technology loans established last year mainly to help U.S. automakers make more fuel efficient vehicles.

Toyota is a global leader in gasoline/electric hybrid design with its popular Prius. The company continues to study the idea of introducing a plug-in hybrid. Inaba also said that Toyota does not expect to turn a profit in fiscal 2009 with industry sales falling sharply this year. Toyota U.S. sales were off nearly 32% in June. Inaba sees signs of overall industry improvement and expects sales to grow from just under 10 million units annually now to between 11 and 13 million units over the next year or so.

Source : Reuters, by John Crawley, July 20th, 2009