Subaru said Monday it would invest $140 million at its Lafayette, Indiana plant to expand production and add 1,200 more jobs at the facility. The announcement is only two years after the growing Japanese automaker said in 2013 they would spend $400 million at the plant to build its Impreza in the U.S. by 2016.
The announcement could also signal that Subaru may not have any interest in the closing Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Illinois, which is only 100 miles from the Lafayette plant. Last week, Automotive News reported that Mitsubishi was making plans to shutter the plant, which has been open since 1988, if they couldn’t find a buyer.
According to The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), Subaru will complete the plant expansion by 2017. Local officials say the state offered $6 million in tax incentives based on the number of new jobs created by the plant. Subaru is already hiring new positions at the plant.
The Lafayette plant has roughly 3,800 workers and produces nearly 300,000 cars a year. Subaru has said that the plant will make around 400,000 cars annually after its expansion.
(Photo Courtesy Subaru of Indiana Automotive)
Read about that earlier today. I wonder what motivated Fuji Heavy to expand their operations this way.
Vastly increased sales. And a plan well over two years in the making.
They’ve also made many announcements since the end of 2013.
All this Mitsubishi plant takeover stuff is just a journalistic red herring to stimulate responses. If you really want to know, use Google, and avoid thinking about clickbait article headlines.
Indiana is a right-to-work state and isn’t in danger of default, unlike Illinois. No brainer!
The Normal, Illinois plant is cursed for many reasons.
I wouldn’t accept it for free, as its costs of operation in a FUBAR’D state by far exceed any represented value (iow, it has a net negative value).
Also, Jimmy Hoffa may be buried somewhere inside the plant (get Jerry Rivers, aka Geraldo Rivera, over there, stat).
Subaru will have quite a bit of additional production capacity at Lafayette when Toyota stops building Camrys there in the next year or so. There’s also the $400m expansion there by Subaru which was announced as separate from Toyota’s departure in addition, it seems, the this recent $140m announcement. Subaru’s recent annual sales numbers are years ahead of their own projections with current production capabilities. Couple all this with the very conservative corporate governance of Fuji Heavy Industries. I don’t believe that Subaru desires to stick its neck out any more than required much less open a can of worms “100 miles away”.
Why buy the older Mitsu plant in Normal when a fabulous, almost new assembly plant might soon hit the market in Tennessee?
The people thrown out of work in the Normal area, and the collateral damage from the plant closing, may necessitate that some of those people move to where the new jobs are, in IN and TN.
I’m amazed that the UAW is not beating down the doors of plants in IN, like they did in TN, to garner new dues-paying members.
My perception is that the workforce at Lafayette is relatively happy and not desirous of the fate that befell dozens of UAW represented plants in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.
For a variety of reasons, most vacated auto plants stay vacant. There’s no particularly good reason to assume that any other company would want or need this one.
This. Tesla taking over NUMMI was the exception, not the rule.
Jeez… look at that! There are entirely too many parts in modern cars.
If parts count is your discriminator for purchase, just about every make and model of the 1960s era is available on eBay for similar prices to new cars and trucks.
So with an expansion, any more word on an extended wheelbase three-row Outback?
Dan, They could put wood contact paper on the sides and call it the Outback “Country Squire” Edition……with dual facing 3rd row seats.
If Purdue keeps losing, there will be plenty of vacant space for expansion across the river in the grandstands of Ross-Ade Stadium.
I thought Jimmy Hoffa’s body went through a rendering plant and became fertilizer. No one’s ever been able to find him and probably never will.
New Jersey legend says that Jimmy was buried very deep in the end zone of the original Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands.