Toyota has run out of space for its unsold cars. So it is putting them on a boat.
The Japanese auto giant told Lloyd’s List that it has chartered a 2,500-car capacity ship that will simply sit at a dock in Malmo, Sweden.
“We have space for 12,500 cars in Malmo, which acts as a distribution center for all the Nordic countries,” Toyota spokesman Etienne Plas told Lloyd’s.
“But we have run out of space. We need the ship to store cars while they are waiting to be delivered. Hopefully we won’t need it for that long.”
Toyota reported that its exports fell by 60 percent in January alone, like many auto exporters. Photos of cars parked at race tracks and stacked rows deep at ports are circulating around the Internet as all automakers try to deal with the fall-off in demand.
Japanese exporters are closely watching the yen, which has weakened against the dollar, falling 6.4 percent this year.
A Japanese recession is making the country’s currency look less like a safe haven, but the previously strong yen had the damaging effect of making Japanese cars more expensive abroad on top of the global credit crunch and collapsing demand.
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