Toyota is investing $391 million in its San Antonio assembly plant, adding technological advancements to improve the site’s manufacturing of Tundra and Tacoma pickup trucks. Toyota needs an updated V8 stat, the Tacoma’s 3.5L is a huge let down from the 4.0L and the 5.7L has cost them some sales from fuel economy concerns. The idea of no V8 is ridiculous, a huge percent of trucks in this country sell based on how good of a V8 they have.
Toyota (NYSE: TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in the U.S. and North America for more than 60 years and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands. During that time, Toyota has created a tremendous value chain as our teams have contributed to world-class design, engineering, and assembly of more than 38 million cars and trucks in North America, where we have 14 manufacturing plants, 15 including our joint venture in Alabama (10 in the U.S.), and directly employ more than 47,000 people (over 36,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold 2.8 million cars and trucks (2.4 million in the U.S.) in 2018.
Toyota celebrates a donation of $500,000 to AlamoPromise, an initiative designed to eliminate poverty through education. From left to right: Texas Governor Greg Abbott, TMMTX President Kevin Voelkel, TMNA Chief Administrative Officer Chris Reynolds, Alamo Colleges District Board of Trustees Vice-Chair Joe Alderete, Alamo Colleges District Chancellor Dr. Mike Flores, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, and Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.
City leaders were joined by Governor Greg Abbott and Toyota officials at the announcement. Speaking on behalf of the motor company, Chief Administrative Officer, Manufacturing & Corporate Resources for Toyota Motor North America Chris Reynolds said that the 5-year investment plan will provide flexible new technologies to the plant that opened 15 years ago.
Melissa Sparks, a Toyota spokeswoman in San Antonio, says the $391 million projects won’t create more jobs. Rather, she says, the investment will focus on installing advanced technology that’ll boost flexibility,” enabling the automaker to keep up with strong customer demand for pickup trucks. The plant will continue to manufacture about 208,000 Tundra and Tacoma trucks per year.
The announcement Toyota is plugging $391 million into its San Antonio pickup truck factory comes six months after the automaker pledged to shell out an additional $3 billion on its U.S. operations by 2021, a move is seen as an effort to head off threatened U.S. tariffs on vehicles imported from Japan. That was on top of an earlier $10 billion pledge Toyota made shortly before President Donald Trump took office.
The development of the shared-platform pickups is near completion and is expected to be introduced beginning in 2021 with the 2022 Tundra. The Tacoma is expected to move onto the F1 platform in 2023 for the 2024 model year. Details of what the shared platform will mean, in terms of design or potential features, remain unknown, although top Toyota executives have pledged to introduce fuel-saving hybrid technology into all Toyota models, including pickups.