Toyota to scrap full product lineup until return to profit: Toyoda

Toyota Motor Corp.’s new president Akio Toyoda, a member of the founding family, said that the automaker will abandon for now its cornerstone policy of offering a full product lineup and focus more on local market needs to return to profitability. Immediately after his appointment, Toyoda assigned four of Toyota’s five executive vice presidents to take charge of specific regions including Europe, North America, Japan and emerging countries. Toyoda, the grandson of company founder Kiichiro Toyoda, was groomed early for the top job after entering the firm in 1984, but he faces the formidable challenge of guiding the world’s biggest automaker out of a once-in-a-century crisis in the global auto industry. Toyota tapped a Toyoda family member for the first time in 14 years after it fell into the red in the year ended March with a group net loss of ¥436.9 billion (US$4.67 billion), a turnaround from a record-high profit of ¥1.72 trillion (US$18.38 billion) in the previous year. Toyoda said he will continue to put resources into expanding the lineup of eco-friendly cars, focusing particularly on gasoline-electric hybrids which have provided a rare bright spot for Toyota. (June 25, 2009)