Production Backlogs Force Toyota To Halt Sales Of A Few Models In Japan

Toyota's hitting a bit of a speed bump in Japan. Specifically, the carmaker pressed pause on selling some popular rides like the Alphard, Aqua, and the 300-series Land Cruiser because they couldn't make them fast enough.

Here's the lowdown: People want Toyotas, like, a lot. More than Toyota can build. They even boosted how many cars they're making to try and keep up. But there's this backlog—imagine a waiting list, but for cars—and it's about a million deep. 

In light of the high demand for its vehicles, the automaker has revised its prediction for domestic production in fiscal 2023 to 90,000 units from 3.34 million units. That's a lot of rides waiting for their turn. Then Toyota changed the game. Before, each dealership could only sell certain cars. Now, it's like a free-for-all; any dealership can sell any Toyota model. Cool, right? But it turns out, everyone wanted in on that action, and orders flooded in.

Good news, though. Toyota is working on speeding things up. The time you wait from ordering to actually getting your hands on the keys is getting shorter—from about six months to just under five. The word on the street is that it might even drop to around four months next spring. So, Toyota's dealing with the rush, trying to get those cars to the eager folks.