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After halting production in Japan and the US, Toyota has announced a plan to halt production at its UK and French plants. Initial reports suggested that the halt at UK will be for 8 days and will impact the manufacturing plant at Burnaston in Derbyshire and Deeside in the Wales. However, there are unconfirmed reports that talk of a 2 week hiatus in production at the UK plants. This move will impact 4000 workers across the 2 plants and there is no clarity on whether the break in production will be a paid company holiday or if it will cost the employees.

The impact of the recalls has been such that there has been a global Sales meltdown for the brand Toyota, and customer confidence is at an all time low. The company is bracing against multiple lawsuits in the US and the Congress wants to grill the Toyota Chairman for the unprecedented quality issues. All this has led to a situation of over-capacity at plants across Japan, US, Britain and France.

Since the day Toyota declared the recall on account of flaws in gas-pedal, the company stock has fallen and it has seen a slump of 37% in January Sales as far as the US Sales are concerned. There has been an all-round push to nail Toyota and its Chairman for an unprecedented customer safety issue for cars affected in the Gas-Pedal recall or the recent Prius recalls.

The Company’s chairman, Mr. Toyodo, is expected to face US Congress and come up with an explanation in defence of the recent recall issues that demonstrate poor quality control at the world’s largest automaker.

While the drop in sales has had impact on the bottom-line of the company, the company had already decided in January that it will halt production at its Japanese facility for 11 days in February and March and the employees will be paid as part of the paid company holiday scheme.

These are troubling times for the Toyota Group and amidst the recalls, there is a slender hope of a revival of the automotive giant.

Robin Smith is a passionate automotive analyst. He is a strong advocate of fleet fuel cards for businesses of all sizes. A fleet fuel card from Shell, Esso, Texaco, or Keyfuels is a great way to control fuel costs.