Output cut

TOYOTA has cut its annual production target by 300 000 vehicles as rising Covid-19 infections slowed output at parts factories in Vietnam and Malaysia, compounding a global shortage of semiconductor chips. “At the moment it is the Coronavirus that is having the overwhelming impact,” executive Kazunari Kumakura said. Unlike other big global carmakers that were forced earlier to scale back production plans, Toyota had managed to avoid cuts to output because it had stockpiled key components along a supply chain hardened against disruption following north-east Japan’s devastating earthquake in 2011.