Toyota Motor Corp. will temporarily cut output of its Lexus models in Japan from next week due to a fall in demand in China because of the coronavirus outbreak, a company source said Tuesday.
The output cut, from next Monday through the end of the month, will amount to about a 6 percent slash from the originally planned level at the company's plants in Fukuoka and Aichi prefectures.
Sales in China of new Toyota cars, including Lexus models, plunged 70 percent in February from a year earlier due to the impact from the pneumonia-causing virus.
Japan's biggest automaker sold about 1.62 million vehicles in China last year, compared with some 1.61 million in Japan, surpassing domestic sales for the first time.
The luxury Lexus models have seen high demand in China, with 202,000 vehicles sold in 2019, up 25 percent from the previous year.