WSJ did not pull their 1.27 million figure from the Toyota Motor Company news release for CY2004 production and sales as far as I been able to determine. WSJ overstates the imports by 92,041 vehicles. Actual figures are reflected below with the appropriate news releases.

Toyota’s US sales are increasing while US/North American production has been falling as a percentage of total production to sales. That is the case. But, that alone doesn’t tell the entire story regarding U.S. and North American production as discussed above - U.S and North American production has grown significantly for the models Toyota has elected to produce in the U.S. and the rest of North America.

The issue boils down to models, and more specifically which models Toyota builds outside of Japan. While Toyota hybrid production is occurring in the U.S. (the Camry, for starters), the Prius is not producted offshore and so forth.

Here’s the data and sources:

Toyota USA - News Media Press Releases - Auto Sales
http://pressroom.toyota.com/releases?st=kw&criteria=sales_result

Toyota Hits Record North American Production In 2004
Increase of 13 Percent Brings Vehicle Production to 1.44
January 11, 2005
http://www.toyota.com/about/news/manufacturing/2005/01/11-1-tmmna.html

Toyota Reports 2004 year end sales in USA
01/04/2005
http://pressroom.toyota.com/Releases/View?id=TYT2005010451468

Toyota Reports 2006 and December Sales
01/03/2007
Torrance, CA
Revised: 01/19/2007
http://pressroom.toyota.com/Releases/View?id=TYT2007010356633

2004:
TOYOTA DIV. IMPORT CAR………..211,191
LEXUS IMPORT CAR………………..136,130

2006:
TOYOTA DIV. IMPORT CAR………..486,505
LEXUS IMPORT CAR………………..183,037

—-

2004:
TOYOTA DIV. IMPORT LT TRUCK…324,381
LEXUS IMPORT LT TRUCK…………..90,447

2006:
TOYOTA DIV. IMPORT LT TRUCK…444,528
LEXUS IMPORT LT TRUCK…………..63,889

==========

Calendar Year 2004
Toyota Div and Lexus car imports……………347,321
Toyota Div and Lexus truck imports…………414,828
Toyota Div and Lexus car/truck imports…….762,149

Calendar Year 2006
Toyota Div and Lexus car imports……………669,542
Toyota Div and Lexus truck imports…………508,417
Toyota Div and Lexus car/truck imports….1,177,959

—-

2004-2006 Toyota Car imports increase………..415,810
2004-2006 Toyota Truck imports increase……….93,589
2004-2006 Toyota Car/Truck imports increase…509,399

2004 North American Built Vehicles…………….1,297,900
2006 North American Built Vehicles…………….1,364,565
*Camry, Avalon, and Sequia sales declined; Camry was since redesigned.

=============

Information on specific vehicle models is available at the news releases cited above.

“Toyota has increased shipments to the U.S. of Japanese-made vehicles from 762,000 in 2004 to 1.27 million last year.”

that seems like a substantial increase …

And I apologize for calling the Tundra a heavy truck — i meant a big pickup, nothing more. I forgot the auto industry conventions.

One question for you — a simple one: Is the ratio between Toyota’s US sales and its US production rising or falling? The WSJ say falling? Is that data point correct?

Tis true that Toyota may be exporting more from Japan to Europe (makes sense, given the XR) than to the uS, but my strong sense — from reading the WSJ — is that its us production to us sales ratio is sliding. presumably your auto industry sources would know the answer to that question (and if you have answered it directly, and i missed it, my apologies — you posted a ton of data when i was focused on preparing my testimony on a subject where i have some expertise.)

The information I provided is just basic data and the answers jump off the sheet for those familiar with such analysis of OEM manufacturers. I pull this type of information for all the auto OEMs. Then we compare it. The more complicated data was not brought into this picture. I didn’t see any purpose in that level of explanation or mathematical detail that most readers of this blog probably wouldn’t necessarily grasp from a costing analysis perspective.

You say that “while nothing in [your] post explicitly implied toyota was still increasing its us production, nothing explicitly said its us production was falling”. Well, that’s not a great answer. You just skirted right past the U.S. production output and capacity FACTS, not touching them. Yet, you go on to draw and present the conclusion that increased sales in the USA will be supposedly supported by production from Japan and that the production growth in Japan is driven by a cost comparison analysis performed by Toyota (you implied this point) and that it was not as profitable for Toyota to increase U.S. production further. In other words, further U.S. investment wasn’t worth it. Well, that walked right over the go forward investment Toyota has already committed through 2010. Yet, no mention of this in your post or WSJ.

I forwarded your main post and the previous one on Toyota to some other analysts who perform various type of research and overview presentations on auto OEMS. I asked what they thought of your remarks and that of the WSJ piece - I did this in the blind, offering no opinons. Not one of them felt that you or WSJ understood what is really going on with Toyota or why certain decisions are being made. The conclusion they drew was that you weren’t familiar with the baseline of Toyota’s global or North American production. You didn’t appear to understand that Toyota recent increases in exports (through 2006) have been flowing to Europe and Asia, not the USA primarily. The USA imports from Japan didn’t even warrant mention in Toyota’s most recent sales update - Toyota mentioned export growth to Asia and Europe as the causes for increased exports. As one Detroit individual noted, “The average reader is led to believe that Toyota is decreasing its US/NA investment and pulling production back to Japan - you know, the layman bloggie Brit reader. An amateur thumbnail effort. Wrong conclusion implied…”

Well, yes, one could arrive at that incorrect conclusion. You didn’t bother to mention that Toyota’s additional investment going forward is at a threshold of over $5-7 billion unfolding through 2010 without any further investment consideration of improving existing plant efficiencies. That’s tall change. Nor did you mention the physical output production capability increases since 2003. You gave the impression that Toyota bailed out on the U.S. production investment and production growth picture three years ago.

By the way, contray to what you said in the comment above, Toyota does not build any heavy truck platforms in the USA. None. The Tundra is a light duty vehicle. It’s just a pickup truck, well below any threshold for consideration as a heavy truck platform. Toyota builds no mid class, heavy class, or class 8 trucks in the USA. More importantly, the Tundra market is not in competiton with the Prius passenger car market. Totally different customers and functional use requirements. Tundra is eating into the pickup markets of GM, Ford, and Dodge along with wounding Nissan. Ford is the big loser at the moment - Ford trucks are bleeding off badly.

U.S. market Pruis sales declined from 107,897 (CY2005) to 106,971 (CY2006), representing a -0.5% drop. But Prius sales in the U.S. have made a large rebound thus far this calendar year. 24,009 were sold in May 07. Now, look up the Tundra sales for May 07 - they’re not far behind at over 19,000.

Toyota does have a few market problems. It’s heavier SUVs are DOA. They need hybrid now in those models. GM will wound them even more next year. And Mercedes has two good SUVs. Finally adding the second one - bigger.

I don’t know if you have bothered to read the Toyota corporate web site, but I respectfully recommend it before you post again on the subject of Toyota.

>>

If you had bothered to look at the previous posts you would know that I identified each vehicle production location by nation in North America.

FYI: North America is not the same entity as the United States of America

http://giftofireland.com/Siteblog/2007/06/29/worlds-largest-tidal-turbine-being-built-off-ireland-2/

you are putting way way too much effort to digging up data here — i certainly don’t have time to go through all the data. but glancing at what you posted, i think you make one key point: there is a bunch of additional investment already in the works in the us by toyota, and toyota’s overall us production is growing.

i honestly don’t think — just based on glancing the data — that contradicts what i wrote or what the wsj reported. the ratio of toyota’s us production to its us sales could still be falling even as its us production is rising if its overall sales are growing more rapidly. given that demand has shifted away from trucks a la the tundra toward hydrids, that doesn’t seem like a stretch (i hear toyota now has spare capacity for heavy trucks, which are made in the us, while the hot-selling prius is made in japan).

and the WSj was reporting about future investment — i.e. it reports that toyota seems to have concluded that it no longer makes economic sense to continue to ramp up its us production at the rate it has been …

while nothing in my post explicitly implied toyota was still increasing its us production, nothing explicitly said its us production was falling — all i wrote (based on the wsj) was that the ratio between us production and us sales was falling.

based on your work do you think that specific point is off? I cannot tell, and i honestly don’t have the time to wade through all the data you have posted here right now. Maybe it is true for cars but not or light trucks/ SUVs?

and the wsj pieces over the last couple of months refer to future investment — you are clearly right that given lags and capacity already coming on line toyota’s us production will still trend up. i could have made that more clear. but i don’t think the wsj got the story wrong.

Did you read and understand it?