Toyota’s new CEO has only just stepped into power but is already looking to streamline the brand’s line-up of vehicles in a bid to reduce costs.
As reported by CEO Kenta Kon officially joined the board on June 17 and has been touring facilities and looking for areas to improve efficiency.
“We’ve become increasingly able to identify things that don’t seem quite right, areas where operations have become somewhat inefficient, or where the amount of work that doesn’t directly add value has increased,” said Mr Kon to Automotive News.
“We’re now at the stage where we can really start addressing them – making corrections and implementing improvements.
“If you go to a development division, you see issues such as an increasing number of different specifications and variants being created, which in turn is driving up costs.
“If there are areas within those activities that aren’t truly value-adding work, or where work isn’t being done efficiently, then we need to take a closer look at them.
“We need to start addressing those issues now and begin making improvements.
“Some changes may be relatively straightforward, but honestly, there aren’t many that will be easy. Many of them may take time.”
At this stage Mr Kon hasn’t identified any specific vehicles or variants that the brand is looking to cull to minimise costs and maximise efficiency.
However, the Japanese carmaker recently scrapped the production version of the LF-ZC , which was an . It reportedly did this due to a global slump of electric vehicle (EV) sales.
This all follows Toyota losing the title of Japan’s most valuable company by market capitalisation, marking the end of a 22-year streak.
Mr Kon was previously the CFO of Toyota Motor Corporation and has dealt with tariff burdens in the US and the threat of new and emerging Chinese carmakers on a global scale.
Toyota is also reportedly expecting a 20 per cent drop in operating profit this fiscal year, which will mark the third year straight of declining earnings.
In Australia, Toyota is still on top of the sales charts but experienced supply constraints on some of its top-selling models, including the RAV4 and HiLux.
It has since locked in 10,000 more vehicles which will reduce wait times.
The Japanese carmaker is now expecting to sell a total of 220,000 vehicles in Australia during 2026.