Toyota is ramping up engine production at its US factory as it continues to expand local output to protect its earnings structure from foreign exchange fluctuations.
By July 2015, it plans to spend US$150m at an engine plant in Alabama and begin machine processing engine components there. It will also spend US$50m at two other factories to install aluminum casting equipment.
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Engine parts processing will be relocated to the US from Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. But by building new engines there, Toyota said it will keep its domestic production levels unchanged.
Toyota announced plans to increase engine production in Alabama 40% to 722,000 units a year in 2012 and this latest investment is part of that initiative, although an increase in line capacity utilisation will raise annual output to around 750,000 units.
This year, Toyota plans to sell 2.2m vehicles in the US, up 6% over 2012.
