Paul Spoonley

But, yeah, really good start to the year.

And, yeah, let's see what comes next.

Toyota, yes.

So, yeah, vehicle sales have been impacted by surged petrol prices.

No surprise there.

And Toyota is a pretty good barometer for that.

They are the world's biggest carmaker.

Sales are slipping.

Global sales fell around 5.8%, 983,000 vehicles in March.

That's the second monthly decline.

Production holding up pretty well.

Not just the conflict, the RAV4 transition.

is having a bit of an impact so buyers evidently holding off ahead of the new model rollout but yeah Middle East certainly a drag sales in that region down by nearly a third also of course with the straight log jammed at sort of both sides or stopped at both sides that's really disrupting key

shipping routes so um it's affecting both demand and supply chains that matters for Toyota and yeah Japanese car makers generally they rely on the region for about 70 percent of their aluminium supplies so input costs are rising uh that's pushing their costs higher

And, yeah, some cracks in production.

So their output in Japan slowed a bit in March, and they cut it by around about 20,000 units per month.

So, yeah, we'll have to see when that straight gets moving.

Could take months to clear, of course, that bottleneck as and when it does resume.

But another bright spot, Mike, if there is one.

for Toyota is EVs.