Funding Boost for Joint Mazda-Toyota Plant
An assembly plant currently taking shape in Huntsville, Alabama just saw a cash infusion. The roughly $1.6 billion facility — a joint operation between Toyota and Mazda — was announced in 2018, with both automakers expected to crank out new crossovers aimed primarily at the North American market.
Well, add another $830 million to the tab.
Reported Friday by Reuters, the automakers have now put the final tally for the joint plant at $2.3 billion, a considerable cost increase. Once up and running, Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc. will employ up to 4,000 people, with an annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles split evenly between the two companies.
The automakers provided little detail as to the exact nature of the $830 million, stating that the funding boost will go towards “production line enhancements made to improve manufacturing processes.”
In May, it was reported that construction delays born of the pandemic pushed the plant’s opening date back, with Toyota claiming a late 2021 production start. Initially, Toyota planned to build Corollas at the plant, but the strategy soon changed, with the automaker instead slating a new crossover for the facility. One wonders if it’ll be the Corolla Cross, already revealed overseas.
As for Mazda’s future crossover, that model is even more hazy, though the recent addition of the CX-30 to the automaker’s lineup points to a three-row midsize offering.
[Image: Mazda]
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"...an annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles split evenly between the two companies" No way that's going to happen. This will eventually end up being a Toyota plant.
Having just left the Huntsville area after 11 years, happy to see the continued expansion of industry into the area.
The Hiroshima based paper Chugoku Shimbun has quoted Mazda CEO that the new Alabama built vehicle (tentatively called "CX-X") will be a more off-road oriented/rugged crossover sized similar to the current CX-5. It will also be based on the FWD architecture shared with the Mazda 3 and CX-30. This will be separate from the actual CX-5 replacement that'll be based on the Mazda's new "large" RWD architecture, which likely will be a more upscale "urban" crossover. So CX-X will be a Mazda RAV4 and the RWD CX-5 replacement a new Mazda Venza, from the look of it.