Japan’s two largest carmakers have arrived at the same conclusion: the US vehicle market that has functioned as a growth engine has run out of gas. Toyota cut its forecast for North American sales this fiscal year by 60,000 vehicles and for the first time said it was expecting a decline for the year, as US consumers shifted away from fuel-sippers such as the Prius hybrid and toward trucks and sport utility vehicles. Nissan, which posted a drop in profit as it gave heftier incentives that buoyed deliveries, said it was not seeing room for further expansion. "The market turned out to be somewhat weaker," Takahiko Ijichi, a Toyota executive vice-president, told reporters on Tuesday after the carmaker reported a 43% plunge in quarterly operating profit. The North American market "really requires very careful managing going forward", he said. The more dour outlook is significant not only for Toyota and Nissan but for Japan’s economy. For the nation’s carmakers, North America remains the ...
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