Report: Toyota 2007 output to overshoot plan by 3%

Report: Toyota 2007 output to overshoot plan by 3%

Reuters October 3, 2007 - 3:10 am ET

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Toyota Motor Corp. plans to build 8.74 million vehicles in 2007, or 270,000 units more than its announced plan due to brisk sales overseas, the Mid-Japan Economist newspaper, partly owned by Toyota, reported.

Excluding units Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd., Japan's top automaker had said in late 2006 that it planned to build 4.27 million cars in Japan and 4.2 million overseas this year.

A revised plan now calls for domestic production of 4.25 million units and overseas output of 4.49 million units, with expanded production in the United States and Asia, the newspaper said on Monday, without citing its source.

Toyota declined to confirm the report.

In the first eight months of the year, Toyota built 2.73 million vehicles in Japan and 2.82 million vehicles abroad. The reported figures would mark the first time that Toyota would manufacture more cars abroad than in Japan on an annual basis.

Toyota is racing to add manufacturing capacity around the world, with new factories planned in Russia, Canada and elsewhere over the next few years.

Combined with Daihatsu and Hino, it is set to produce more vehicles this year than General Motors.