Official: Toyota won’t cut production

The official said he isn’t sure when auto sales will rebound.

YORK TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Toyota Motor Corp.’s top U.S. sales executive said Thursday that the company won’t make more production cuts this year despite a sales slump that may not end until after next year.

Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, said the company’s car inventories are below the optimal 45-day supply. Truck inventories are a little high, but Lentz said he expects that to fall in line by the end of the year.

In August, Toyota furloughed workers at its Tundra pickup truck plant in Texas due to slow sales. Lentz says they will return to work as scheduled in November.

That doesn’t mean Toyota is preparing for sales to return to normal levels anytime soon.

“We’re in a very, very difficult industry now,” Lentz told reporters after a ceremony dedicating a new safety and engineering center near Ann Arbor. “What makes the industry most difficult right now is consumer confidence.”

Consumers, particularly car and truck buyers, have cut back spending as the worldwide financial crisis has brought down stock markets across the globe and caused a tightening of credit that is hurting auto sales.

Toyota posted a 32 percent drop in U.S. sales in September as monthly sales industrywide fell below 1 million for the first time in 15 years.

But Lentz said credit availability isn’t the problem for Toyota because its financial arm is making loans as usual.

Toyota last week announced zero-percent financing on most of its model lineup as it tries to boost sales. Included are the popular Camry midsize sedan and Corolla small car, as well as trucks.

“Now we also have some great credit offers, to let consumers know that there is credit available in this industry to come buy vehicles,” he said.

Lentz said he was unsure when sales might make a rebound, but he said Toyota still expects industrywide U.S. light vehicle sales of around 14 million this year, with a similar number in 2009.

Analysts, however, have voiced concerns that the ongoing slump in U.S. vehicle sales could last longer than they previously expected. J.D. Power and Associates said Thursday that it now expects U.S. new vehicle sales to total 13.6 million units this year, down from its previous projection of 14.2 million units. J.D. Power also expects a further decline to about 13.2 million in 2009.

U.S. sales in 2007 totaled 16.1 million units.

Lentz also told reporters he doesn’t see any Toyota dealers going out of business because of the financial crisis. The National Automobile Dealers Association has predicted that 700 dealers nationwide will cease operations this year.