Toyota Motor Corp. plans to cut production at two truck assembly plants in Texas and Indiana in response to slowing sales, company representatives announced Thursday.
“No one is being laid off or losing their job. But they are slowing the assembly line,” said spokesman Joe Tetherow.
The Toyota plant in San Antonio builds only full-size pickup trucks, while the plant in Princeton, Indiana builds a mixture of trucks and full-size sport utility vehicles.
Sales of the Tundra, Toyota's full-size pickup truck increased last month and sales of Sequoia, Toyota's full-size sport utility vehicle also increased by eight percent, he said.
“Sales aren't exactly bad,” according to Tetherow, but the demand for new trucks is down.
Sean McAlinden, vice president of research at the Center For Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, said he wasn't surprised Toyota had cut production.
“I don't know if they're changing the goal of 200,000 sales this year,” he said. “Sales of pickup trucks have been very soft.”
Toyota opened the new pickup truck plant in San Antonio in the fourth quarter of 2006 in a bid to end General Motors, Ford and Chrysler LLC customer dominance of the pickup market.
Pickup trucks, which are widely used by construction workers, farmers, ranchers and utility workers, account for nearly 15 percent of all vehicles sold in the United States.
Toyota, however, fell short of its bid to sell 200,000 new Tundra in 2007. Meanwhile, incentives have been creeping up according to analysts at Edmunds.com.
GM's pickup truck production has been slashed dramatically by a strike at a key parts supplier, American Axle and Manufacturing Inc. in Detroit.
The strike has closed six GM assembly plants, including all four of the GM plants dedicated to building pickup trucks.
Ford closed one of its pickup truck plants last year and Chrysler has idled its pickup truck plants for short periods since last fall.
