(Tokyo) Toyota plans to restart its production in Japan on Wednesday, after it was completely paralyzed on Tuesday due to a giant computer failure, which would not be due a priori to a cyberattack, according to the world number one. car.
The group plans to restart production at 12 of its 14 factories in the archipelago as of Wednesday morning, then the remaining two in the afternoon Japanese time, it announced in a statement on Tuesday.
“We understand that the system malfunction was not caused by a cyberattack,” Toyota repeated in its statement released in the evening Japanese time. “However, we will continue to investigate the origin” of the problem, the group added, without giving further details.
Earlier in the day, the Japanese giant had explained that this failure prevented its computer system from processing orders for parts, which led to the suspension of 12 of its factories in Japan from Tuesday morning, then of all of its 14 factories in the country during the afternoon, a total of 28 production lines.
This breakdown only affected the group’s Japanese factories, sparing its many production sites abroad, Toyota also specified.
The group’s share, which started rising on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday, fell into the red after this information. The stock ended 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 mostly affected in 2022 by supply chain disruptions and shortages of semiconductors, Toyota’s global production has accelerated sharply since the start 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 company (which also includes its Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino brands) expects 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 one year.