Toyota is to follow Ford and General Motors and exit car manufacturing in Australia. It said it plans to finish Toyota vehicle and engine production in Australia by the end of 2017.
TMC President Akio Toyoda said that a number of factors were behind the decision and he also appeared to highlight the impact on the industry’s supply base following others’ planned exits.
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“We believed that we should continue producing vehicles in Australia, and Toyota and its workforce here made every effort,” he said. “However, various negative factors such as an extremely competitive market and a strong Australian dollar, together with forecasts of a reduction in the total scale of vehicle production in Australia, have forced us to make this painful decision.”
“We did everything that we could to transform our business, but the reality is that there are too many factors beyond our control that make it unviable to build cars in Australia,” Toyota Australia President Max Yasuda said in a statement.
About 2,500 jobs will be affected when the plant stops building cars in 2017, the company said.
Toyota also said it is considering reducing the scale of the operations of Toyota Technical Center Asia Pacific Australia Pty. Ltd. (TTCAP-AU), Toyota’s development base in Australia with operations related to Toyota production in Australia.
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