Toyota Motor Europe (TME) is content with the size and scope of its European manufacturing footprint and has expansion plans only in Russia, a top executive has said.
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TME president and CEO Tadashi Arashima told just-auto on the sidelines of the Frankfurt show that the automaker is “quite happy” with its current UK operations which, as just-auto reported yesterday, is completing a GBP40m refurbishment to ramp capacity up to around 285,000 units a year.
“We are at full capacity,” Arashima said, adding that there was no room to expand and the plant was a “good size” as Toyota assembly facilities average around 200,000.
“We do not have any expansion plan other than the [currently-under-construction] St Petersburg plant in Russia.”
Although he stressed nothing has been decided, and no expansion was planned as such, he hinted that output could be boosted at the company’s Deeside engine plant in the UK, which last year made 180,143 complete engines and a further 258,000 engine sets for assembly elsewhere.
“We have a little bit of room [there],” he said.
He stressed that all Toyota plants compete with each other to win new business and any increase in Deeside would depend on “winning the competition” for additional work.
Arashima said the St Petersburg plant, a CKD operation using parts mostly from Japan, planned for an initial 20,000 Camry units a year which could rise to about 50,000 in three or four years, would supply only the “booming” Russian market.
The Camry was withdrawn from other European markets early in the life of the previous generation.
“Our task is to develop Russian suppliers,” Arashima said, noting that there was not yet a sufficient network. He expected that to develop as more automakers – Suzuki, Nissan and General Motors set up plants in the St Petersburg region where Ford is also well established.
Arashima said there were no plans to expand the company’s Turkish plant which makes around 150,00 Corolla Verso and Auris models a year. Output could be boosted a little by overtime working.
He said Toyota remained “on target” to sell 1.2m vehicles in Europe this year “plus a little bit more” – 1.22m or so is likely.
Graeme Roberts
