UPI - Toyota to hike production of Prius hybrid

[jkash]

Toyota to hike production of Prius hybrid

Toyota City, Japan, Jul. 20 (UPI) -- Big U.S. demand for Toyota Motor's Prius hybrid sedan has prompted the Japanese carmaker to hike the model's production, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Toyota, which currently makes 47,000 per year, could double that number, most likely by opening a second production site.

Read enitire article by clicking this link.

Jeff

[jamarimutt]

Toyota is concerned "customers are waiting almost too long," one top executive said in an e-mail message.

Is it possible to wait almost too long?

[mshappe]

OK. Here's the problem I'm having.

On the morning of the 20th, the WSJ publishes an entirely speculative article based on anonymous sources within Toyota who claim that a dramatic production increase in just around the corner and that most of it will be coming to America.

Later that same day, however, the WSJ posts an interview with Cho-sama, President of Toyota, who says that he thinks the production increase from April (7k to 10k/month) was adequate to fill te backlog. In short, that as far as he knows, no additional increase is immediately likely.

Meanwhile, every other newswire, instead of doing their own reporting, slavishly picks up the WSJ's speculation as if it were accomplished fact.

What's the point of having a free press when all of the press outlets suck?

[deh2k]

Here are two stories I found on the subject that are not copies of the WSJ article:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=1...0U8&refer=japan

http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content.mv?por...t_code=07665061

Neither mentions another factory, but there is some encouraging news. I think.

[mshappe]

The Bloomberg article seems to be covering the same event as the later WSJ article. I'll agree with you that it's not a slavish reproduction, but there isn't really anything strongly encouraging there.

The AutoNews articles is, despite its dateline, over a month old, and has appeared all over the net's news services. The 'month wait' it talks about was from the end of June until about now, which means we should hopefully be hearing good news (or indeed, any news) about improved allocations very soon.