Bentley, Toyota slash production

THE global economic downturn is continuing to cut a swathe through auto industry production, with British luxury marque Bentley last week announcing plans to shut its factory in Crewe, England, for up to seven weeks.

And in Japan this week, new global No.1 Toyota is reportedly planning to slash about one million units from its domestic production schedule this year – down to about three million units.

Bentley, which suffered a 24 per cent slump in sales last year, is preparing for a further decline this year by shutting down Arnage production for six weeks from the start of March, according to the website of UK magazine Autocar.



Bentley Continental production will be slashed even further, with production being halted for seven weeks from March. No firm date for a resumption of production has been set.

The shutdown, affecting 3600 workers who will remain on full pay for now, will be staggered to allow cars already in production to be completed.

The cuts mark a reality check for the Volkswagen-owned luxury car-maker, which enjoyed record sales of about 10,000 cars in 2007.

Last year, Bentley production declined to 7600 units – a figure that is highly unlikely to be matched this year.

The plight of Bentley has been exemplified by the fate of a Bentley dealership in Exeter, Devon, where receivers have moved in after the dealer failed to sell a single car for three months. The closure leaves the south-west of England without a Bentley dealership, the nearest being in Cardiff, Wales.

In Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper has reported that Toyota expects domestic output for 2009 to be about three million units – about a million short of its estimated production last year, and close to the minimum necessary to maintain employment of its full-time workforce.

The decline would mark the second straight year of domestic production cuts, and Toyota believes production could be cut further if the current global sales slump deepens, sources were quoted as saying.

Toyota’s Japanese production has not fallen below three million units since 1979, when it was 2.99 million units.

Meanwhile, global output of Toyota vehicles for this year is predicted to be about 6.5 million units, of which nearly 50 per cent would be made up of domestic production. This would be the lowest level since 2003, when its global output of new cars was 6.07 million units.

In North America, Toyota has announced plans top scale back production at seven plants in an attempt to cuts its burgeoning stock levels by half.

Toyota North American sales last year fell 16 per cent over 2007, but the year-on-year decline has been getting steeper, with a 37 per cent slump in December.