Posted on 03/22/2015 6:16:43 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Toyota Motor is finalising plans for its first passenger car assembly plant in Mexico that could be approved by its board as early as next month, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
The plant would make the popular Corolla compact sedan and begin production in 2019. Based on recent investments by rivals, including Volkswagen, a new assembly plant would represent an investment of over $1 billion for Toyota.
A green light for the plant would signal an end to a 3-year expansion freeze imposed by the Japanese automaker's president Akio Toyoda, who has blamed aggressive expansion a decade ago for contributing to quality lapses and a 2009 recall crisis.
Toyoda last year asked planners scouting for a site in Mexico to hit 'pause' and review the rationale for the project, executives familiar with the matter said then. He urged executives to squeeze more production from existing factories.
Toyota is the last mass-market automaker without a major production hub in Mexico, which has lured car makers and suppliers through its low labour costs and tariff-free access to the United States, Toyota's largest single market. The Japanese firm has a plant in Mexico's Baja California that produces the Tacoma pickup truck, but it has no passenger car plant.
Last year, Mexican officials pitched half a dozen potential sites for a new plant, and Toyota executives have zeroed in on a site in the central state of Guanajuato, two people with knowledge of the deliberations said.
A delegation of Toyota executives recently spent a week in Guanajuato and remain in talks with local government officials over a potential plot of land that would give the automaker a big enough footprint to expand in the future, a source said.
"We are always evaluating our production capacity in Mexico, and in North America generally, to keep it in line with local market demand, but no such decision has been made at this time," Toyota spokesman Itsuki Kurosu told Reuters.
An official at Mexico's economy ministry had no immediate comment on Toyota's plans in the country. A spokesman for Guanajuato's economic development department declined to comment.
good luck to Them.. lol.
If this is one answer to their quality issues they are doomed.
This is the type of thing that will curtail the illegal immigration here, since supposedly they come here for a ‘better life’.
A day late and a dollar short I’m afraid.
Having studied the Toyota Production System and associated corporate cultural factors extensively, I think they’re biting off a huge challenge in getting that into a plant in Mexico. This will bear watching, especially for the effects on quality.
Volkswagen had big problems with its cars made in Mexico. I owned one, and couldn’t believe the problems, in every area of structure and performance.
“This is the type of thing that will curtail the illegal immigration here, since supposedly they come here for a ‘better life’.”
Correction, they come here for the better welfare. Nothing is going to change that. I look at it every day.
To be safe when Toyota shopping, look for a VIN number staring with “J”. :)
The unemployment rate in Mexico is about 3%, and that isn’t a fudged number like ours is.
They come here for free everything, not jobs.
I drove each for years and they were very reliable. Unless something has changed in the past 10 years I wouldn't hesitate to buy a car assembled in Mexico.
biting off more than a person can chew...
A few of the auto makers with plants in Mexico include
BMW AG
DAIMLER AG
FIAT CHRYSLER AUTOMOBILES
FORD MOTOR COMPANY
GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY
HONDA MOTOR COMPANY
NISSAN MOTOR COMPANY
TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION
VOLKSWAGEN AG
Click the following link to see which vehicles are assembled by each MFG.
***Volkswagen had big problems with its cars made in Mexico.***
I bought a VW THING Made In Mexico back about 40 years ago. Piece of junk! It would fall apart just sitting in the driveway, and on weekends when I should be out in the back hills, it was in the shop!
On the other hand, my 2001 Dodge truck, made in Mexico has held up well, except for the dash board which is shattering on it’s own.
I worked 10 years (left in 2014) for a company with multiple facilities in Mexico, we had constant QC issues. In fact that was a major factor in my deciding to leave, I could no longer be in a position of knowing we could not live up to expectations.
BTW, I love many things about Mexico, but over 20 trips there has proved things are not improving. Also we did 400 million a year out of those facilities which is not ‘cacahuates’
Remind me again of where the company is that made all those exploding airbags..........
I owned a Chevy waaaaay back when that was built in Mexico. It started falling apart within the first year and rattled everywhere. Never again.
I hear that!
excerpt from a long informative Forbes piece.......
“Everything you need to know about the future of the global auto industry is printed on the business cards of Carlos Lozano de la Torre, governor of Aguascalientes, Mexico, a central province named for its abundance of hot springs.
Seated at an enormous round table inside the ornate 17th-century government palace where he has his office, he reaches into the side pocket of his dark gray suit and shuffles through a stack: Here’s one version in German, another in Chinese, another in English. “I have them in ten languages, but I only speak Spanish,” he says with a chuckle as he hands over the English version.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2014/08/20/americas-car-capital-will-soon-be-mexico/
They come here for free everything, not jobs.
Actually immigration from Mexico has dropped because the Mexican economy is doing better, but Mexican immigrants have been replaced by Central Americans.
NAFTA, the trade treaty that has been screwing American business & labor for twenty years.
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