Fred,
SMS's second sale of a scanner to Toyota was the big one. A company might try a product once on an experimental basis, but they're not going to buy another one unless they like it and it works for them. I think we will see further sales to Toyota in the future.
Byron
Monday June 28 6:39 AM ET
Toyota Expects To Raise U.S. Output
By Edwina Gibbs
TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (Nasdaq:TOYOY - news) will likely build a new production line or plant in the United States to cope with robust demand, the company's new president Fujio Cho said Monday.
''At the moment, most of our U.S. production facilities are working at near full capacity and it may be that we have to do something new,'' Cho said.
He added that a new facility had a 70 percent to 80 percent likelihood of going ahead and that Toyota would make a final decision by the end of the year.
In his first meeting with reporters since his formal appointment as president Friday, Cho also said Toyota may soon need to revise its U.S. sales goal upwards from its current short-term target of 1.5 million units annually.
Toyota, along with other Japanese automakers, has seen its U.S. sales climb in line with the country's robust economy. The company sold a record 1.36 million vehicles in the United States in 1998 and had its best month ever in May with sales up nearly five percent from the previous year.
Rival Honda Motor Co said earlier this year that it will build a light-truck assembly and engine plant in Alabama.
Cho said Toyota, Japan's biggest automaker, had not begun any studies about possible sites but building a new production line on Toyota land in Indiana was one of several possibilities and the one he personally favored.
Toyota builds Tundra pickup trucks at its Princeton, Indiana facility.
Cho declined to offer specifics on what vehicle model a new facility would produce, although he said candidates could include the hybrid-engined Prius, luxury division Lexus vehicles and passenger car models.
Cho reiterated Toyota's long-term goal of selling six million vehicles worldwide by early in the next century, as well as the car company's determination to increase sales in Japan and be at the forefront of new technologies.
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