Toyota Automotive Industry Turkey General Manager and Top Director Toshihiko Kudo said, “With the effect of the Covid-19 process, we will produce 216 thousand vehicles by the end of 2020 and export 179 thousand of these vehicles.”
Stating that they will close this year with the production of 216 thousand vehicles due to the epidemic process, Toyota Automotive Industry Turkey (TMMT) General Manager and Top Director Toshihiko Kudo said, “We plan to produce 246 thousand vehicles in 2021 and export our 221 thousand C-HR and Corolla models, corresponding to 90% of this, to 150 different countries of the world.”
Kudo answered the questions of the AA reporter regarding the 2020 performance of the factory operating in Arifiye district of Sakarya and Turkey’s automotive industry.
Expressing that the new type of coronavirus (Covid-19) epidemic has had negative effects on the automotive industry as well as other sectors, Kudo reminded that they started 2020 with a very good performance, but they stopped all operations for 7 weeks between March and May.
Kudo, stated that they started production after that period and reached the efficiency level of 80% first and then 96% with the measures they applied during the epidemic period, “Since September, our band speed has returned to the pre-pandemic period, but we continue to follow the process closely. The pandemic process has also confirmed how accurate and necessary the transformation journey to the ‘mobility’ Toyota company is currently in.”
“The theme of 2020 was change and transformation”
Stating that the theme of 2020 is “change and transformation”, Kudo stated that this transformation, including the automotive industry, took place very quickly compared to the last ten years.
Kudo said, “The automotive industry continues to produce solutions very actively. To give an example from production, the increasing automation in factories and the use of high-tech robots and smart systems, the development of environmentally friendly production techniques and technologies; and in terms of driverless or interconnected smart vehicles, systems related to traffic safety and human health, and even smart cities.”
“Our production and exports decreased by about 14%”
Referring to the 2020 performances as TMMT, Kudo said:
“With the effect of the Covid-19 process, we will produce 216 thousand vehicles by the end of 2020 and export 179 thousand of these vehicles. This means a decrease of approximately 14% in our production and exports compared to the previous year. However, the year 2020 led to some positive things for us. As a reward for 30 years of success since our establishment in 1990, this year we were awarded the “Golden Plant” award by JD Power, the American independent research company, as the best factory in Europe and Africa. Therefore, although 2020 was a very difficult year due to the pandemic, we were proud and very happy with all our employees and suppliers for this very valuable success in terms of the automotive industry. In order to continue our economic and social contributions to Sakarya and Turkey by further strengthening our operations in the fields of production, quality, occupational safety, and occupational health, environment, flexibility, employee development with the contribution of all our employees we will continue our efforts not to slow down, taking as reference our 30 years of success since our establishment.”
“We are trying to keep the domestic parts supply at the highest possible level”
Kudo, who also shared the details of the localization rate in vehicles produced in Sakarya, continued as follows:
“We are working with approximately 98 local and 167 foreign sub-industry companies, mainly from Europe. Our domestic rate is 55% on average and cost basis, and 90% on volume basis. In Turkey, we work with 98 sub-industry companies that supply parts such as seats, door inner panels, heating and ventilation units, rims and tires, airbags, cable harnesses, exhaust pipes, mirrors and glasses, metal parts, and plastic mold parts. I am pleased to say that our domestic sub-industry companies are at a very successful level today, and most of them export not only to vehicle manufacturers in Turkey but to all over the world. Therefore, we know and follow the sub-industry base in Turkey very well. In this way, we try to get the maximum benefit from the quality and price competitiveness of Turkey, and we try to keep the domestic part supply at the highest possible level, thus increasing our localization rate in each new project. ”
Kudo, stating that as TMMT, they received R&D approval from the Ministry of Industry and Technology for the “Production Engineering and System Development Center”, which they put into operation in 2019 in order to offer creative solutions to the sector, said that in this center that production and maintenance processes have established in order to develop safer, less costly technologies, they continue to work on issues such as Industry 4.0, Lot, image processing and automation systems and that they aim to export these smart systems, which are the “heart and brain of production”, to other Toyota factories in Europe.”
“We plan to export our models to 150 different countries around the world”
Touching on the position of the factory in Sakarya compared to Toyota’s other factories around the world, Toshihiko Kudo said, “As Toyota Automotive Industry Turkey, in the four years since we started producing hybrid vehicles we have achieved the highest production and hybrid production percentage among all Toyota plants in Europe, making Turkey a ‘hybrid base’. We are pleased to maintain and develop our position as an important manufacturer and exporter in the automotive industry for 30 years and to develop our goals.”
Kudo, regarding the production targets, said “We plan to produce 246 thousand vehicles in 2021 and export our 221 thousand C-HR and Corolla models, which corresponds to 90% of it, to 150 different countries of the world.”
“8 thousand 801 of the 9 thousand 788 hybrid vehicles sold in Turkey were produced in our factory”
Kudo stated that 163 thousand of the 253 thousand cars produced at Toyota’s factory in Sakarya in 2019 consisted of hybrid motor vehicles, 65% of them were hybrid motor vehicles. And added saying:
“Our production for the first 10 months of 2020 was approximately 165 thousand vehicles, with 70% hybrid vehicles. We observe that in the process that has passed since we started mass production of our first hybrid vehicle Toyota C-HR, the awareness of hybrid vehicles has increased gradually. It is pleasing for us to know that as of September 2020, 9 thousand 788 hybrid vehicles sold in Turkey, 8 thousand 801 of them are our Corolla and Toyota C-HR models manufactured in our factory. I believe that the use of hybrid vehicles will become more common in the coming years.
As TMMT, our main goal is to always produce better vehicles with our experiences and our dedicated and qualified employees. Today, we are a company that has taken very successful steps to make our high quality production more efficient, with all our employees doing their jobs in safe work environments and all our suppliers with whom we cooperate effectively. As a result of these efforts, we are also appreciated by Toyota Global. We are working with all our might to make this appreciation and trust sustainable.”
Turkey automotive market assessment
Toshihiko Kudo made the following assessment regarding the automotive market of Turkey in 2020:
“The negative effects of the epidemic were reflected in automotive production and related sales globally. Despite all these negativities, the fact that the virus reached Turkey late compared to Europe, the steps taken to control the virus, pandemic effects, various measures taken to encourage consumers to turn to individual vehicles and to keep the automotive industry alive contributed to the growth of the automotive industry in 2020. In the first 11 months of 2020, the automotive market increased by 72% compared to the same period of the previous year and reached 668 thousand 495 units, despite the negative effects of Covid-19, I think it is a good result.”
Source: AA / Translated by Bazaar Times Team