Hopefully this might be able to clear some things up for you guys.
I had a call from Toyota UK today, and spent around 20-30 minutes discussing the whole ordering process (with a lot of apologies my way for the delay, and a promise of more transparency). The result of this transparency was the following (bare in mind, my dealer told me in May that my ETA was September 13th 2022).
So this is (apparently) the situation with these cars.
- Build of the 400 car allocation is due to take place across the next year, starting from around May 2022, until June 2023. The factory is working their way through a list of UK allocations on a first come, first serve basis.
- There is currently no definitive number of cars being built per month specifically for the UK market, as the factory are building EU market cars concurrently.
- The only time an estimated delivery date can be given, is when you car reaches the "Build" phase on the app. From that point, it is approximately 3 months until you'll get the car. Any "estimates" given by dealers should not be being communicated to customers. That field on the order sheet is only populated because it can't be blank.
- I had my order confirmation email at 10:19. They've said this places me "just in front of half way" of the orders. I've been told there's a chance my car may go into build in 2022, but delivery will almost certainly not be until 2023. Car may not even enter build before then.
- They will have no further news until the car goes into build, so between now and then, there's nothing more to say.
Safe to say, I'm not thrilled with this. My dealer was adamant of the September 13th delivery date. I was prepared for that date. Now there's a possibility I might not get the car for almost a year!