Place Your Bets: Toyota, Mazda Narrow Factory Site to Two States

by Matt Posky

Published: November 14th, 2017

place your bets toyota mazda narrow factory site to two states

Alabama and North Carolina are the final states left in the running for Toyota and Mazda’s $1.6 billion collaborative production venture. Tennessee, Texas and South Carolina are now out of the running but, as you know, there can only be one.

Which state is the smart money on? Your guess is as good as ours, but Toyota does already have an engine manufacturing plant in Huntsville, Alabama. It might make sense to keep things centrally located, especially if it NAFTA falls through and Toyota has to shift Corolla production back to Mexico and bring the Tacoma into the states. Of course, if that doesn’t happen, a factory closer to West Virginia and the little 2ZR-FE DOHC might be preferable.

Of course, with both companies pressing for a billion-dollar incentive package to build on U.S. soil, the final decision may come down to whichever state is willing to provide the better deal.

Based on Toyota’s August announcement, the site will have an annual capacity of around 300,000 units and will create some 4,000 jobs.

The shared factory is expected to open in 2021 and would be the first new auto assembly plant to be announced under President Donald Trump — who has been both pressuring and praising Toyota (and other manufacturers) over building vehicles in the United States. A final decision is expected to be announced by the automakers early next year.

[Source: Automotive News] [Image: Toyota]

#Billion-dollarDeals #Factories #FactorySites #Mazda #PlantSites #Production #StateIncentives #Toyota #ToyotaCorolla

Matt Posky

Consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulations. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, he has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed about the automotive sector by national broadcasts, participated in a few amateur rallying events, and driven more rental cars than anyone ever should. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and learned to drive by twelve. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer and motorcycles.

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13 of 29 comments

I_like_stuff on Nov 14, 2017

Blue states begging Amazon to build HQ2 with gajillions of tax incentives: AWESOME MAN!! Red States providing moderate tax incentives to build cars there....worst thing since the beginning of time Ahh to be a liberal.....

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- See 5 previous
- Mike978 on Nov 14, 2017
  
  The Mazda/Toyota will be around for a long time. Providing jobs (and suppliers) for years to come. Seems a reasonable bet.
  
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- 30-mile fetch on Nov 14, 2017
  
  You are well and truly up in the night if you think this kind of thing doesn't run both ways. Critical thought is hard but partisan thought is a good cheap high. Try the hard option once in awhile.
  
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- Highdesertcat on Nov 14, 2017
  
  @mike978 "The Mazda/Toyota will be around for a long time. Providing jobs (and suppliers) for years to come." While that is true, it does not mean that the build-quality is the same between North American-built and Japan-built. A lady friend of ours just retired her 1987 Japan-built Camry and bought a brand-new Japan-built AWD RAV4. She looked at both and chose the one with the JT VIN. Many of the parts aren't even interchangeable.
  
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- Hubcap on Nov 15, 2017
  
  @highdesertcat "Many of the parts aren’t even interchangeable." Are you saying that if I wanted to purchase a part; year, make and model wouldn't be sufficient, I'd also need country of origin?
  
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- Redmondjp on Nov 15, 2017
  
  @hubcap To be fair, on some Japanese vehicles they use (or used to use) components from multiple suppliers that were not direct replacements for each other. So, when you went into the parts store, they would ask you: "Do you have the Mitsuba or the Hitachi distributor?" To which you would just stand there and stare blankly back at the parts counter person.
  
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- Highdesertcat on Nov 15, 2017
  
  @hubcap "Are you saying that if I wanted to purchase a part; year, make and model wouldn’t be sufficient, I’d also need country of origin?" Exactly! To wit: parts for my 1989 Japan-built Camry V6. and parts for my grand daughter's 2008 Japan-built Highlander 4x4. Both are getting hard to find. Special order maybe, 'cause no one stocks parts for Japan-built vehicles like CV-boots, radiators, etc, and nut/bolt threads are not the same.
  
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Whatnext on Nov 14, 2017

I'm sure Roy Moore would throw in some sweet young, young things to sweeten the Alabama pot.

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Threeer on Nov 15, 2017

Being from Huntsville, I'm hoping for Alabama.

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Daniel J on Nov 15, 2017

I hesitantly hope Alabama. I live just down the road from the plant in Huntsville, AL. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. The problem is that Toyota hires X number, and farms another Y number from employment services. The number always changes, but the temporary or contract employees make much less and have worse benefits. Some are on for years and are promised permanent employment and it never happens.

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- SCE to AUX on Nov 15, 2017
  
  But it's never bad enough for the plant to unionize.
  
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- Redmondjp on Nov 15, 2017
  
  @SCE to AUX Because there is no other game in town. Only so many people can work at the local Walmart.
  
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- Bullnuke on Nov 15, 2017
  
  It's been that way at Honda in Ohio since the beginning. Using temps makes things easier for the fluctuating head counts needed for fluctuating production requirements. In past years very few were permitted to apply for full-time Honda associate positions. I'm fairly certain that this hasn't changed.
  
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