Toyota WV announces $210M investment in Buffalo plant | Enterprise
2 min readToyota’s presence in the Mountain Point out is having a significant improve.
The Japanese automaker announced Thursday that Toyota Manufacturing West Virginia will commit $210 million into its operation in Buffalo. Exclusively, that signifies upgrading present engine generation and generating 100 positions to enhance assembly potential of its 4-cylinder engine line.
When finish, the complete expense at the Putnam County facility will exceed $1.8 billion, with extra than 2,000 workforce. The upgrades and more choosing are expected to be total in the second half of 2022.
The new jobs will build a 3rd shift for Rav4 motor creation, which should really make an further 5,900 engines for each month and extra than 70,000 on a yearly basis.
“[The] announcement signifies Toyota’s ongoing dedication to our shoppers, as effectively as our group,” Toyota Motor Producing West Virginia President Srini Matam reported in a news launch asserting the go. “We are thrilled to extend our Toyota relatives and proceed our very long-standing dedication to offer top rated-excellent engines and transmissions for our customers.”
The 2-million-sq.-foot facility — which is now in its 25th year of procedure — is a single of 10 Toyota crops in the United States (like a person established to open later this calendar year in Alabama that is a joint venture with Mazda). Toyota also has a auto plant 181 miles absent, in Georgetown, Kentucky, that was recognized in 1986 and employs extra than 10,000 men and women.
The Buffalo plant makes just about 1 million engines and transmissions each year for North America-assembled Toyota versions, this sort of as the Camry, Corolla and Highlander.
“Toyota’s motivation to boost its investment decision in West Virginia and into our really hard-doing the job West Virginians establish they continue to be a amazing business partner correct listed here in the Mountain State,” Gov. Jim Justice said in the release. “This is this kind of exciting news for West Virginia’s company group, as very well as our families, that businesses are picking to develop their businesses in this article. Toyota is a amazing case in point of how a world wide company can be effective suitable right here in West Virginia.”
The announcement comes on the heels of a sturdy finish to 2020 for Toyota, particularly its North The usa division. Past thirty day period, it described December sales of 249,601 automobiles — a 20.4% boost in volume and a 7.5% advancement on its every day advertising price when in contrast to December 2019. That was a constructive finish to an usually down yr in which it sold 2,112,941 models, 11.3% much less than the past year.
It did have a solid calendar year with hybrid product sales, nevertheless, with 337,036 units sold — a 22.7% maximize from 2019. Hybrid product sales accounted for practically 16% of all Toyota revenue in North America. Overall, Toyota was the major-offering retail manufacturer in 2020 for the ninth consecutive 12 months.
