Toyota and Mazda To Build U.S. Plant -- WSJ
August 04 2017 - 2:02AM
Dow Jones News
By Adrienne Roberts
This article is being republished as part of our daily
reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S.
print edition of The Wall Street Journal (August 4, 2017).
Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. are expected to
announce Friday plans to build a $1.6 billion assembly plant in the
U.S. that would create 4,000 jobs and be up and running by 2021,
according to a person briefed on the plans.
The new factory's location hasn't been decided. Once built, it
would produce 300,000 vehicles a year with half being the Toyota
Corolla and the rest an unspecified Mazda model, the person
said.
The two Japanese car makers also will form a joint venture to
co-develop electric vehicles, safety features and connected-car
technologies, the person said.
Mazda had previously operated with Ford Motor Co. in a joint
venture in the U.S. Toyota has worked with Subaru and others.
The Nikkei earlier reported news of the expected factory
announcement.
The announcement could hand a victory to President Donald Trump,
who took aim at Toyota earlier this year for its plans to build a
$1 billion assembly plant in Mexico, rather than in the U.S.
Toyota, in a statement, said the auto maker's board is
considering the joint-venture proposal and pointed to an agreement
in May 2015 between Toyota and Mazda to "explore various areas of
collaboration."
Mazda's board will also review the proposal at a meeting Friday
in Japan, the company said in a statement. "We cannot comment
further."
The new plant is being planned as U.S. auto sales plateau and
demand for sedans, such as the Corolla, are slipping amid low
gasoline prices. Auto makers have been trying to balance production
capacity through a combination of production slowdowns and higher
incentives.
Toyota, the world's largest auto maker, already has a major
manufacturing presence in the Midwest and South with factories in
Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas. For Mazda, the plant's
opening would mark the first time it is building cars in the U.S.
since it stopped manufacturing vehicles with Ford in 2012 in
Michigan.
Long seen as strong in passenger cars such as the Camry, Toyota
has been racing to add more trucks and SUVs to its lineup. The
company nearly outsold General Motors Co. in July, but typically
holds the No. 3 spot in terms of U.S. vehicle sales.
Toyota often pulls from other plants in the world, including
Japan and Turkey, to feed products to U.S. dealerships when supply
of popular vehicles runs low. In recent years, Japanese auto makers
have shifted more manufacturing to North America to be closer to
the U.S. market and reduce exposure to currency fluctuations.
Write to Adrienne Roberts at Adrienne.Roberts@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 04, 2017 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
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