Unused cars pile up in Europe

Faced with a shortage of storage space, Japanese car manufacturer Toyota is currently hiring a ship in the Swedish port of Malmo to store thousands of unsold cars the depressed EU market does not seem to want.

"It's an emergency measure that we had to take due to storage space issues," Toyota press spokeswoman Anne Gaublomme told EUobserver.

The decision to store 2,500 cars aboard a vessel owned by car transporting specialists Wallenius Wilhelmsen was made last month when the Malmo port facility reached its limit of 12,000 cars.

"We hope to keep the time of this measure as short as possible, as we are continuously adapting our production level," said Ms Gaublomme.