Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., with U.S. sales rising faster than its factory capacity, is still studying the need for an eighth North American assembly plant, the company's executive vice president said.

Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker, will be able to build 2 million cars and trucks in the region by 2008 after adding expanding plants in Texas, Indiana, Ontario and Mexico to build 470,000 more vehicles. U.S. sales have grown by about that amount since 2004.

North America production plans after the Woodstock, Ontario, plant opens in 2008 are ``now under consideration,'' Executive Vice President Mitsuo Kinoshita told analysts and investors at a New York conference today. ``It's not that we have a conclusion, but aren't announcing it.''

An eighth North American plant would enable Toyota to meet more of the region's demand without imports from Japan, which already are at a record 900,000 this year. The import surge may fan U.S. criticism of the company for not adding capacity so American workers can build those cars.

``We have them adding an eighth North American plant, most likely, in Mexico by 2010,'' said Catherine Madden, a production analyst for Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts. ``It's likely to make Yaris or other small cars, such as Scions.''

Neither Kinoshita, 60, or Yukitoshi Funo, chief executive officer in North America for Toyota City, Japan-based Toyota, would discuss any potential factory locations.

`All the States'

``Really all the states are candidates,'' Funo said in an interview. ``We don't exclude any possibilities.''

Toyota is spending more than $2 billion to increase North American production, the fastest expansion in the industry. Toyota trails only General Motors Corp. in global sales and has overtaken DaimlerChrysler AG in the U.S.

The company's sixth North American auto plant opens in Texas next month to produce Tundra pickups. The Ontario plant, Toyota's seventh, is scheduled to begin making RAV4 small sport- utility vehicles in 2008.

Toyota has limited ability to begin working on another plant at this point, Kinoshita said. ``It's not easy to add 470,000 units of capacity in two years' time,'' he said. ``It really requires tremendous effort.''

Toyota's U.S. sales through September rose 12.5 percent to 1.93 million vehicles, and the company expects to sell about 2.5 million this year. Of those sales, only 54 percent were produced in North America, down from 62 percent a year earlier.

Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., Toyota's main Japanese rivals, each get about 75 percent of their U.S. sales from vehicles built in North America.

Toyota's American depositary receipts fell $1.16 to $114.21 at 4:26 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Ohnsman in New York at aohnsman@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 6, 2006 18:27 EDT