Toyota won’t remove features in Australia despite chip shortage

The Japanese automotive giant is on track to return to full production capacity next month, and claims it won’t need to remove electronic features to get there.

Toyota – Australia’s most popular marque – will not remove features from its cars when it returns to full global production capacity next month.

An ongoing

global semiconductor chip shortage crippled the car industry throughout late 2020 and all of 2021, forcing the vast majority of manufacturers to reduce total vehicle output due to reliance on the parts.

Toyota was forced to slash monthly production to 570,000 cars last month (down from 845,000 during October 2020), however says it will build 800,000 vehicles this December – a new record for the month.

While other car makers – including Citroen, Peugeot, BMW, General Motors, and Mercedes-Benz – have stripped electronic features such as touchscreens and digital instrument clusters in some models to maintain supply, a spokesperson for Toyota told Drive: “No, our cars will not be de-specced in any way [when we ramp back up to full capacity later this year].”

Next year the Japanese automotive giant claims it will build approximately nine million cars, up from an estimated 7.5 million throughout 2021.

Toyota is currently the best-selling car maker in Australia, having

reported 192,166 vehicles as sold so far this year. For reference, Mazda – which is the second best-selling marque – has delivered just 88,746 cars to customers over the same period.

The post Toyota won’t remove features in Australia despite chip shortage appeared first on Drive.