Toyota Adjusting Sales Goals: Toyota admits not accurately forecasting current market

The recent slump in North American sales has gun-decked, or at least delayed, Toyota’s goal of becoming the first automaker to sell 10m vehicles worldwide in a single year.

Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe announced Friday in Tokyo that the company’s world sales goal of 10.4m units in 2009 has been reduced by nearly 7pct to 9.7m. The reevaluation is primarily results from this year’s latest North American sales forecast of 2.7 units - down 5pct from 2007 - with sales forecast to remain flat through 2009.

In announcing the revised long-term forecast, Watanabe sited “the economic environment, crude oil prices as well as the material cost trend” as factors that torpedoed the company’s sales forecast. Adjustments are being made in production schedules with U.S. plants in Texas and Indiana taking 3-month sabbaticals from building Tundra pickups and Sequoia SUVs.

“We are looking at the current shift towards fuel-efficient cars as a structural change in demand,” Watanabe said of the U.S. market. “We intend to respond quickly and flexibly to this environment.”

Plans to move up the commercial launch of the plug-in Prius gasoline-electric hybrid to the end of 2009 were announced at the news conference. Toyota will also accelerate development of an all-electric vehicle, putting the company in a race with GM”s Chevy Volt to become the first mass-produced such unit. Toyota has several spiffy looking platforms in the concept stage that could give its all-electric offering the skin to combat the racy looking Volt.

Over the short term however, it’s all about moving current inventory.