Faced with the possibility of the slump in auto demand dragging on for months, Toyota Motor Corp. plans to idle some of its global production lines as it rushes to cut costs in a bid to return to profitability.

Potential cuts at a UK plant, a Japanese plant and two US plants could reduce its global annual capacity by 600,000 to 700,000 vehicles. Toyota has groupwide production capacity of 10 million vehicles a year.