FAW Toyota’s Tianjin factory back to production today

The skyrocketing sales achieved by Toyota Motor Corporation in China this year was suddenly halted by the blasts at Tianjin Port on August 12.

Tianjin Port had massive explosions on the night of August 12. After the accident, Toyota made a statement that 4,689 vehicles in total had been damaged by the explosions, involving FAW Toyota, GAC Toyota and Lexus. And FAW Toyota’s factory in Tianjin begins producing on August 27.

As the factory is far from where the explosions took place, and was not operational then, facilities were all intact. However, 3,449 cars in the parking zone outside the factory were damaged by the blast wave. Besides, 28 CBU cars that were imported from Toyota Japan and sold in FAW Toyota outlets were damaged. FAW Toyota promised that the delayed delivery of new cars to those who had made orders would be ensured through optimization of production and logistics, and that the enterprise would come up with subsidy policies.

In the first half of 2015, FAW Toyota sold 271,000 units, an 8% jump year on year. In July, the sales volume of FAW Toyota reached 62,000 units, 27,000 units of which were Corolla, ranking first for the second consecutive month in auto sales in China. FAW Toyota produced Corolla in the factory in Tianjin Port, but one official said the production capacity would not be affected.

GAC Toyota also has one outlet at the site, in which 343 domestic vehicles and 86 imported vehicles were damaged. GAC Toyota quickly responded to it also by optimizing production and logistics. As for Lexus, 783 units parked near Tianjin Port were damaged, and the enterprise promised to take relevant measures to address the issue.

FAW Toyota, GAC Toyota and Lexus all promised to prevent the influx of damaged cars into the market. They also agreed to publish vehicle type and vehicle identification numbers of those damaged cars on the official website so as to be enquired and supervised by consumers.