How often does this happen. Renting a ship may make sense for storage, but it just attracts a lot of bad publicity.
Toyota rents ship for unsold carsMALMO, Sweden, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- Toyota Motor Co. said it had taken the telling step of renting a ship in Malmo, Sweden, to store cars it cannot sell due to the poor economy.
On-land storage for unsold Toyotas in the area has hit the limit of 12,000 vehicles, the EU Observer reported Wednesday.
"Our vehicle logistics center in Malmo had reached a maximum capacity as core sales in the region have decreased recently," Toyota said.
To deal with the unsold inventory, Toyota has rented a ship owned by transport firm Wallenius Wilhelmsen, so it can nest 2,500 unsold cars on board, the Observers said.
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One has to wonder how much money they spent to store those cars. That's about 40m dollars worth of Toyotas floating around. But depending on how much it costs and how long those cars will be floating there, and taking into consideration deprecation... wouldn't it be cheaper just to give away the cars? Ah, but that wouldn't be good business I suppose.