On Tuesday, Toyota Motor Corp. will suspend production overnight at all 14 of its plants in Japan due to a system failure — a rare disruption for the world’s largest automaker, which is rushing to reboot its renowned production system.
According to a Toyota spokesperson, the malfunction made it impossible to order parts, affecting 28 assembly lines producing everything from the popular Corolla and Camry models to Prius hybrids. While it is still unclear when operations will resume, the company does not suspect it has been the victim of a cyberattack, the spokesperson said.
Twelve of the 14 plants were idle during the day shift, and only Toyota’s plant in Miyata in Fukuoka Prefecture and the subsidiary Daihatsu Motor Co. plant in Kyoto were not affected by the issue. According to the company representative, the problem is currently limited to domestic plants only.
Hino Motors Ltd., another Toyota subsidiary, said on Tuesday that it is also experiencing system issues and will shut down four assembly lines at two Japanese plants.
Toyota shares fell 0.8% in early Tokyo trading following the announcement of the production suspension, but later recovered most losses and closed 0.2% lower.
In February 2022, Toyota was forced to shut down all 14 of its domestic plants after one of its suppliers suffered a ransomware attack. It took several days to restore operations, and the incident affected about 5% of Toyota’s monthly production volume.
In July, a suspected Russian ransomware attack disrupted Japan’s largest port in Nagoya. Toyota, which relies heavily on the port, said shipments were temporarily halted but production was not affected.
In June, Toyota produced and sold a record number of vehicles as production continued to recover from semiconductor shortages and other component disruptions.
Based on Bloomberg materials