ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Toyota
announced today that it is planning another expansion of its
Southeast Michigan R&D campuses. This marks the third time in
just over a year that Toyota has announced plans to increase
employment and investment in Michigan. Today's announcement features a
total investment of $126 million for
the expansion of Toyota's powertrain operations at its Ann Arbor campus and the consolidation of
vehicle development operations at a new facility on its
York Township campus.
Both vehicle development and powertrain functions will become
centralized in Michigan,
increasing their scope, responsibility and decision-making ability
while providing improved communication and access to the company's
direct procurement division. Approximately 85 jobs will relocate to
Michigan from California by the end of 2016 as a part of the
move.
In late 2013, Toyota announced a $28
million expansion of its Ann
Arbor operations and earlier this year announced the
addition of 250 direct procurement and supplier engineering
development positions currently based in Erlanger, Ky.
"The Technical Center continues to be a vital part of our
growing North American operations that enables Toyota to package
greater value for our customers," said Ed
Mantey, senior vice president at the Toyota Technical
Center. "Centralizing our vehicle development and powertrain
functions here in Michigan is
beneficial for our decision-making process and allows us to better
respond to changes in the marketplace while improving the speed at
which we can offer technology advances to customers."
"Toyota's expansion in the Ann
Arbor region is a clear indicator that we offer the
perfect infrastructure, talented workforce and support for a
growing business," said Paul Krutko
President and CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK. "Toyota could locate its
North American powertrain operations anywhere but chose
Ann Arbor; the company's
investment and the jobs it will create are a continuing win
for our economy."
In April 2014, Toyota announced
that it would establish new headquarters in North Dallas (Plano), Texas
for its North American operations as part of a series of moves
designed to better serve customers and position the company for
sustainable, long-term growth. This strategy includes
establishing a new North American headquarters in Plano, Texas; expanding the Toyota Technical
Center facilities in Southeast
Michigan to accommodate increased investment in its
engineering and product development capabilities; and opening a
production engineering facility at Toyota's largest U.S.
manufacturing plant in Georgetown,
Ky. The new facilities are expected to be completed by
2017.
Toyota (NYSE: TM), the world's top automaker and creator of
the Prius, is committed to building vehicles for the way people
live through our Toyota, Lexus and Scion brands. Over the
past 50 years, we've built more than 25 million cars and trucks in
North America, where we operate 14
manufacturing plants (10 in the U.S.) and directly employ more than
40,000 people (more than 32,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North
American dealerships (1,500 in the U.S.) sold more than 2.5 million
cars and trucks (more than 2.2 million in the U.S.) in 2013 – and
about 80 percent of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 20 years
are still on the road today.
Toyota partners with philanthropic organizations across the
country, with a focus on education, safety and the
environment. As part of this commitment, we share the
company's extensive know-how garnered from building great cars and
trucks to help community organizations and other nonprofits expand
their ability to do good. For more information about Toyota,
visit www.toyotanewsroom.com.
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SOURCE Toyota Motor Sales, USA,
Inc.