Toyota Says It Will Meet Its 2.5 Million Sales Target For the U.S. This Year

Toyota's  (TM) - Get Report  head of North America says despite concerns of a slowdown in the auto industry, his company is on track to meet its sales forecast of 2.5 million vehicles in the U.S. this year. "It's one thing to have a plateau in the market that's relatively low," said Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota North America. "But we are seeing a plateau in a market that's relatively high. As we look at our forecast going into the future over the next couple of years, we don't see a lot of degradation in that overall market size." Lentz cited good consumer confidence and low interest rates among the reasons for his optimism. Lentz made the comments while giving a progress report on Toyota's new North American headquarters in Plano, Texas. The company will begin moving into some of the new buildings next spring, and announced on Thursday that it will hire an additional one thousand workers. TheStreet's Rhonda Schaffler has details from Wall Street.