Toyota slowing down large vehicle production

It's a lesson other automakers probably wish they'd learned a while ago: there's no point building big vehicles if no one wants to buy them. This realization has caused Toyota to cut back production in Japan of large vehicles like the HIghlander. The number of large vehicles built at the Toyota Motor Kyushu will be about 16 percent lower than last year, according to unsourced reports in the Nikkei (found in Automotive News Europe). Toyota had hoped to reduce production by just 10 percent, but made more cuts as the year wore on and sales in the U.S. and Europe didn't increase. This month, production lines were about 30 percent slower than usual, a trend that will likely continue until the end of the year. Toyota Motor Kyushu also makes large hybrids like the Kluger and Harrier, but those models were not mentioned in the ANE piece.

[Source: Automotive News Europe]