On Wednesday, Toyota Motor Corp cut its forecast for new car sales in the United States in 2022, citing supply chain difficulties caused by the COVID-19 epidemic and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Bob Carter, Toyota's executive vice president of sales in North America, said on a conference call that the US auto industry is expected to sell 15.5 million vehicles in 2022, down from a previous forecast of 16.5 million. "We have a supply chain challenge," he said. There is no improvement in the short term, which leads to a reduction in sales forecasts. "
Even before the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the global auto industry had been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shortages of semiconductor chips, disrupting parts of the supply chain and causing prices of raw materials such as aluminium and nickel to soar. After the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the situation became even worse.
Although Carter expects the rise in raw material costs to be partly passed on to consumers, he believes consumers' affordability of cars will not be a problem this year. After the supply chain resumes, it will take six months for inventory rates to return to normal, he said.
Toyota released its u.s. sales figures for the first quarter of 2022 over the weekend, which, while maintaining its lead in u.s. sales, fell nearly 15% from a year earlier.
Toyota previously said in a statement: "due to the shortage of spare parts caused by the spread of COVID-19 's epidemic, the company has repeatedly adjusted its production plans, causing considerable inconvenience to customers and other related personnel. Due to the shortage of semiconductors, there has been an additional reduction in production. Once again, we express our most sincere apologies to our customers and suppliers for the inconvenience caused by these adjustments. "
Due to the challenges posed by the supply chain, the sales figures of other traditional car companies are also not good-looking. Ford reported on Monday local time that total car sales in the first quarter of this year were 432132, down 17.1% from a year earlier. Of this total, total sales in March were 159328, down 25.6 per cent from a year earlier. GM's sales also fell 20% in the first quarter.
