Toyota Motor (TM) has decided to add a second production shift at its Woodstock, Ontario, assembly plant in Canada in order to gear up the output of its highly sought after compact crossover utility model, RAV4. With this, the RAV4 output will almost double to 150,000 vehicles per annum from the present 80,000 vehicles per annum.
Last month, RAV4 clocked the highest growth in sales of 35.1% to 11,512 vehicles in North America compared to all other Toyota brands. Sales of the crossover have gone up 4% in North America so far this year.
Addition of a production shift would also bring more than 800 jobs to the Canadian plant. The plant, opened a year ago, currently employs about 1,200 people. The Japanese automaker also has a plant in Cambridge, Ontario, which employs about 4,500 people and builds the Corolla, Matrix and Lexus RX 350.
Toyota returned to profitability in the second quarter of fiscal 2010 ended Sep 30, 2009, after reporting losses since the third quarter of fiscal 2009. The company posted a profit of ¥21.8 billion ($232 million) or ¥6.96 (7 cents) per share. This was attributable to government incentive programs across the world – such as the U.S. “Cash for Clunkers” – that helped the company recoup its market share.
Toyota revised its consolidated vehicle sales for the fiscal ending Mar 31, 2010 from 6.6 million to 7.03 million units, an increase of 430,000 units. This figure reflects the increase in sales due to the success of various incentive programs launched by governments across the world to stimulate demand in the industry as well as sales of the company’s own hybrids and other environment-friendly vehicles.
Consequently, the consolidated net revenues forecast were upgraded to ¥18 trillion ($191 billion). However, the company anticipates an operating loss of ¥350 billion ($3.72 billion) and a net loss of ¥200 billion ($2.13 billion) for fiscal 2010.
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