Toyota Motor’s global sales have fallen by 8.6% on a year-over-year (YOY) basis in July. The company has missed its production target for the 4th consecutive month, Reuters highlighted.
The decline in sales has put the company’s annual production target of 9.7 million units in jeopardy. Reports highlight that chip shortage and other pandemic-induced production and supply chain hiccups have stunted Toyota’s production.
They add that the company’s global production figures in the first 4 months of FY2022 (from April till August 2022) have fallen 10.3% short of the original target.
Along with the supply chain crisis and chip shortage, Toyota Motor Corp. faced additional climatic hazards such as floods, which forced it to observe significant production cuts. Furthermore, a recent report from Greenpeace highlights that Toyota, Honda, and Nissan are at the greatest risk of facing climate change irregularities.
The report highlights that the geographical locations of Toyota’s production facilities are highly prone to hurricanes, flooding, high temperatures, and water shortages in the future.
Greenpeace advised Toyota in particular to “take more aggressive action to reduce its carbon footprint.” However, Toyota pushed back against the report, stating that:
Toyota has a solid track record of working within its resources to restore its operations and production in the event of climate change-related disasters, earthquakes and fires with humanitarian assistance and early restoration of affected areas as the utmost priority. It is impossible to predict exactly when, where, and what kind of disaster will occur in each country and region, we believe it is more important to create a system and human resources to minimize damage through early restoration and other measures.
The carmaker has garnered a great deal of negative attention for its reluctance to transition to electric vehicles (EVs), which continues to hamper its public image.