Toyota is to slash worldwide vehicle production by 40% in September because of the global microchip shortage. The world's biggest carmaker had planned to make almost 900,000 cars next month, but has now reduced that to 540,000 vehicles. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58266794 Toyota was one of the first companies to adopt Just-in-Time (https://marketrealist.com/2016/05/toyotas-just-time-method-critical-success/) however after the devastating Fukushima earthquake in 2011, Toyota realized that they needed to stock pile critical parts. It has now been roughly 18 months since the start of the pandemic chip shortage in 2020, and it sounds like the shortage has now even caught up to Toyota. How the shortage is affecting other firms: Renault forecasts its car production could be down by about 100,000 this year Sony says it is difficult for it to bump up production of the PS5 consoles Apple expects the impact of the shortage to worsen and extend to iPhone production Tesla says it is using alternative chips and rewriting software Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing plans to build new factories in the US and Japan