Obviously, a failure of this magnitude is reminiscent of a cyberattack that would occur in a context of tension between Japan and other countries because of the discharge of water slightly contaminated with tritium and other elements from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. However, the manufacturer does not accredit this thesis.
“Twelve auto factories, covering 25 production lines, are unable to order parts due to a system failure,” a Toyota spokeswoman told AFP. “At this time, we do not believe this is a cyberattack,” she added.
Toyota’s stock on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was briefly suspended and took a bit of a beating. But the markets retain their confidence in Toyota and the action finally loses only 0.21%. This is not the first time that a computer failure has paralyzed all or part of production. On March 1, 2022, Kojima Industries, supplier to the world’s number one, experienced a cyberattack that forced Toyota to completely suspend production for one day.
No parts order available
This failure prevents the computer system from processing parts orders. This blocks the supply of factories in the country and therefore puts 25 production lines on hold. The last two factories were also shut down a little later. It is therefore the 14 factories in the end that are shut down.
The market therefore believes for the moment that Toyota should solve the problem of the day quickly. For Toyota, this is a major issue after a year 2022 that was greatly disrupted by shortages of certain electronic components. 2023 got off to a flying start with +10% production over one year and a half-year record for the group according to a product report at the end of July. Production targets (Toyota, Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino trucks) are around 11.4 million vehicles for fiscal year 2023-2024.
We will see tomorrow if the breakdown lasts or if Toyota succeeds in restarting everything.
