Good news from Toyota gives car industry a boost

Toyota provided more evidence of the recovery in the automotive market today, when the Japanese giant reported its losses are not as bad as feared and that it will be back in the black next year.

In a week when General Motors felt confident enough to keep ownership of its European operations including Vauxhall and in which Ford reported a quarterly profit, Toyota said its third-quarter losses came in at 63 billion (£420 million).

Analysts had expected Toyota to post losses of 750 billion for the year but have now cut forecasts to lower than 300 billion.

Toyota has been through a bout of cost-cutting which saw it walk away from Formula 1, saying its Grand Prix budget of around £180 million could be put to better use.