Toyota May Add New Factory as Sales Rise

Toyota Motor Corp. is considering an increase in production capacity in North America, including a fifth auto plant, to keep stride with rising sales, Bloomberg News reported. Toyota, the world’s third-largest automaker, expects sales of cars and light trucks to hit the 2 million mark as early as 2003 and must look into adding production capacity to meet growing demand. The company hasn’t yet decided where and when a factory would be built. Toyota president Fujio Cho also said that the company is willing to license its gasoline-electric hybrid technology to General Motors and other U.S. automakers, although to date no U.S.-based automaker has asked. Toyota was the first automaker to gasoline-electric hybrids and has sold more than 100,000 units worldwide since releasing the Prius in Japan in 1997.