Toyota Motor Corp. manufactured and sold a record number of vehicles in June as operations continued to recover from a shortage of semiconductors and other parts.
Global sales — including those of subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd. — rose 9% to 968,801 cars in June, Toyota said Friday. Monthly output rose almost 10% to just over 1 million vehicles.
Sales increased the most in Japan, Africa, Europe and North America. However, sales slumped almost 13% from a year earlier in China, where a lack of electric models is seeing global automakers like Toyota and Volkswagen AG lose ground to domestic automakers like BYD Co.
Read More: China’s EV Revolution Shows Grim Future for Japan Car Titans
Production in China fell 18% to 167,987 vehicles. Toyota earlier this week said it had dismissed roughly 1,000 contracted factory workers in China.
Earlier this year, Toyota underwent a rare change in leadership followed by a publicity campaign to improve public sentiment toward its electric vehicle strategy, and to convince shareholders that it will make good on past promises to rapidly expand production of battery-based EVs.
The group’s global output reached a record 5.6 million cars in the first half of 2023, the carmaker said. During those six months, global battery EV sales rose 517% from last year to 46,171 cars.
After former Lexus chief Koji Sato took the helm in April, the world’s largest carmaker by sales promised to sell 1.5 million BEVs annually by 2026. It previously pledged to sell 3.5 million by 2030. Still, the Japanese maker argues the world isn’t ready yet for a complete shift to EVs. Meanwhile Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. and BYD are clear frontrunners in the growing EV market.
Toyota will announce first quarter earnings next week.
Honda Motor Co.’s global production in June dropped 4% from a year earlier to 371,837 vehicles, while domestic sales dipped more than 10%, the carmaker said Friday. While output grew about 5% during the first half of 2023, sales in Japan have declined during that period for the second year in a row.
(Adds Honda sales figures in final paragraph.)
