Toyota announced that they have planned what they are calling non-production days at 2 US plants located in San Antonio, Texas and Georgetown Kentucky. The Georgetown plant was scheduled for 1 non-production day on February 26, with an additional 3 non-productions days possible in March and April.
The Georgetown plant builds the Toyota Camry, Avalon and Venza and employs about 6,850 people. The San Antonio plant, which builds the Tundra pickup truck and employs 1,850 people, is scheduled for 2 non-production weeks, the weeks of March 15 and April 12. During the down time the San Antonio plant will be installing new equipment that will allow them to built the Tacoma pickup, the new equipment was originally scheduled to be installed on the weekends during the month of March. The Huntsville, Alabama plant will also experience some non-production days, the Huntsville plant make V-8 engines for the Tundra pickup truck and the slowdown will coincide with the San Antonio plant. About three hundred employees are expected to be affected.
Toyota plans to pay the workers for the non-production days and provide them with additional training.
Toyota announced the slow down in response to growing inventory as they attempt to deal with recalls. Over the past 5 months Toyota has recalled more than six million cars in America alone and 8.1 million worldwide. They also stopped sales of eight models, including the Camry and Corolla in the United States. Toyota officials believe the total cost of the recall could reach $2 billion. According to CNN Money Toyota spokesman Mike Goss said:
"We don’t want inventory to build up for our dealers, we can’t keep sending vehicles to dealers until they can start moving those vehicles."
The recalls are expected to take a toll on Toyota’s reputation as the safety leader, Toyota announced that January sales were down by 16% from last year and they expect to see a decrease in sales of about 80,000 vehicles in North America alone as a result of the recalls.
Meanwhile, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that they will be launching a probe to determine how and when Toyota became aware there was a safety issue with the recalled models. According to federal law automobile manufacturers have 5 days from the date they discover a safety defect to notify the NHTS and begin an immediate recall. David Strickland, Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said:
"Our top priority is safety and we expect that all manufacturers address automotive safety issues quickly and in a forthright manner,"