Subaru to End Camry Production for Toyota at Indiana Plant

TTAC Staff
by TTAC Staff

2007 Photo, Toyota Camry being assembled at Lafayette, Indiana Subaru factory.

Media reports citing Subaru of Indiana Automotive Inc. executive vice president, Tom Easterday say that Toyota will stop having Subaru build Camrys for sale in North America at SIA’s Lafayette, Indiana assembly plant when the current five year contract expires in 2017. “Based on changes in Toyota’s production plans, they have decided that the award-winning Camry production contract will not be renewed,” the Louisville Journal & Courier quoted Easterday as saying. Toyota declined comment. Subaru’s parent company Fuji said no decisions have been made and that it had nothing official to announce. Subaru has been building Camrys for Toyota in Indiana since 2005.

Subaru had previously said that it would increase the factory’s capacity from 170,000 to 300,000 units annually by the end of 2016. The plant has the capacity to build 100,000 Camrys a year in addition to Subaru models. Subaru had already said that it would be adding Impreza production to the Lafayette facility, it’s only assembly plant in North America. Easterday said that because of the addition of Impreza production, the loss of the Camry contract won’t affect employment levels at SIA. Other models may be added to the flexible facility.

“We also know there are future projects that Subaru has in mind for our plant that should add several hundred jobs in the future, possibly by 2018.”

The loss of the Camry contract may be a blessing in disguise since Subaru needs more capacity if it will meet its goal of half a million U.S. sales by 2016, up from about 420,000 this year.

TTAC Staff
TTAC Staff

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  • Angrystan Angrystan on Nov 15, 2013

    Twenty years ago the Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky was the dominant regional newspaper and close to the top ten American papers in circulation. How the mighty have fallen.

  • Russycle Russycle on Nov 15, 2013

    "award-winning Camry production contract "? I'm confused, does "award-winning" refer to the Camry or the contract? If the Camry, meh, cars are like kindergartners, they all get awards for something. If the contract, wow, that's one awards ceremony I can miss.

    • See 1 previous
    • Russycle Russycle on Nov 16, 2013

      @Kinosh Interesting, thanks for the info.

  • Zip89123 Zip89123 on Nov 18, 2013

    I've read elsewhere the Subaru plant had better Camry reliability numbers than the other Camry plant. Quality might take a hit, but Subaru definitely gained some help from Toyota with vehicle electronics, and probably with the tranny too. Time will tell.

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