High fuel prices and the darkening economic climate are forcing Toyota, the Japanese car giant, to cut production at its main British factory.

As part of plans announced today in Tokyo, the Japanese company said it would reduce the number of daily shifts at its Burnaston plant from its current two to just a single shift later this year for the Auris line of cars.

Toyota said that it had no plans to make UK factory workers redundant. The cut in output at the Burnaston plant in Derbyshire comes at a critical moment as the factory produces a model of the Avensis, which is nearing the end of its life and is due to be revamped.

Although the company has plans to introduce a range of more fuel-efficient vehicles into Western Europe next year, analysts said that the production cut in the UK “comes at a bad time in the cycle.”

Pointing to the continuing decline in demand for cars from the US, the Japanese giant lowered its annual vehicle sales forecast for fiscal 2009 to 9.7 million units — a modest rise of just 2.1 per cent above current year forecasts.

The reduction means that Toyota is abandoning its ambition of becoming the world’s first carmaker to shift more than 10 million units in a year.

Analysts gave warning today that even the new sales forecasts might be downgraded.

One Tokyo-based analyst told The Times that although Toyota appeared to be making reasonable assumptions about the US and European markets, there were still risks and a profit downgrade later in the year remained a possibility.

He said: “This new forecast may be achievable, but it certainly puts a lot of faith in the company’s sales performance in emerging markets. If those start to falter in the way that some economists are predicting, Toyota is going to have to cut again later in the year.”

The company appeared to acknowledge the risks of betting on India, China and South America.

Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota’s president, said: “The business environment is rapidly becoming more difficult. Things remain very uncertain, not just in the United States but in emerging countries and resource-rich nations as well. We cannot be optimistic now.”

The Japanese group, struggling with the rest of the auto sector to address sliding North American and European markets, said that it would adopt a similar shift-cutting strategy at its engine-making plant in Poland and has announced plans to cut back production in the US.

Toyota’s new forecasts assume that the North American market will stagnate between 2008 and 2009, despite the company’s continued commitment to a substantial rise in production of the Prius and other hybrid models.

Other analysts, including JD Power & Associates, are predicting that US sales will fall to 14.2 million vehicles this year, hitting a 15-year low.

The company, which has made its name as a pioneer of lower-emission more fuel-efficient vehicles, attempted to offset the gloom by accelerating plans to introduce electric cars.

In a bid to steal a march on the likes of General Motors and Ford, Mr Watanabe said that the company would start to mass-produce electric cars in early 2010. The plug-in hybrid is to be introduced next year.

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