Despite severe supply issues, resulting from natural disasters in Japan and Thailand last year, Toyota and Honda have been steadily increasing production. As a result, both automakers were able to achieve record levels in North America during the first half of this year, Honda producing 894,196 vehicles in Canadian and U.S. plants, while Toyota moved 944,570 units (the latter representing a 374,429 increase over the same period in 2011).
Although both automakers have so far declined to give projections for total 2012 North American production, a spokesman for Toyota, Mike Goss, did say; that “Toyota will make a record number of vehicles [in North America] this year.”
According to research and analysis firm IHS Global Insight, the surge in Honda and Toyota manufacturing should help push North American production to 14.9 million vehicles from the year, up from 13.1 million in 2011.
Facing rising costs at home and a strong currency, which is eating into profit margins, Japanese automakers are looking to shift more production overseas, particularly to other parts of Asia and also North America. Where the latter is concerned, this likely to result in more vehicles being assembled for export.
Mike Jackson, an industry forecaster at IHS, said that in terms of industry trends “what we are seeing in production is strong domestic demand, but also some international pull, particularly with German brands, but also with Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda and others, they are leveraging North America for international markets.”
