A giant computer failure paralyzed production at Toyota’s 14 factories in Japan on Tuesday, but the world’s largest automaker said it did not suspect a cyberattack at this stage. The group explained that this failure prevented its computer system from processing orders for parts, which led Tuesday morning to the suspension of 12 of its factories, concerning 25 production lines.
Toyota later decided to halt operations also at its two remaining factories in the country in the afternoon, with the disruption affecting a total of 28 production lines.
This failure concerns only the Japanese factories of the group and not its many production sites abroad, also specified later Toyota. “At this time, we do not believe this is a cyberattack,” a spokeswoman for the company told AFP. The action of the group, which had started rising on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday, fell into the red after this information. The stock closed the session down 0.2% while the Nikkei index gained 0.18%.
Last year, Toyota was forced to suspend all production in Japan for a day due to a cyberattack that hit one of its suppliers, Kojima Industries. After being mainly affected last year by disruptions in supply chains and shortages of semiconductors, Toyota’s global production has accelerated sharply since the beginning of this year.
Its global production exceeded 5.6 million vehicles in the first six months of 2023, an increase of 10.3% over one year and a new half-year record for the group, according to figures published at the end of July. The group (which also includes its Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino brands) plans to sell 11.38 million vehicles worldwide in its current fiscal year 2023/24, which would be a new record and an increase of 7.8% over a year.