Toyota (
www.toyota-global.com) and Mazda (
www.mazda.com) announced in August that they are jointly building a $1.6 billion assembly plant in the USA, buying a stake in each other and developing electric vehicles.
Under the agreement, Toyota, the world’s second-largest car maker, will buy a 5% stake in Mazda, which is Japan’s sixth-largest car maker; the latter will take a 0.25% share in Toyota.
The US plant will have the capacity to make 300,000 vehicles annually and will create up to 4,000 jobs, the companies said.
The location is yet to be determined, but it will begin work in 2021 (pending regulatory approval).
Mazda will make new crossover vehicles for the North American market at the plant, while Toyota plans to produce Corollas for the North American market there.
The goal, the companies said, was to respond more quickly to the needs of their customers.
A statement said: “With the future of the industry in mind, in addition to leveraging their individual strengths to further improve technologies and reinforce their business foundations, Toyota and Mazda aim to deepen collaboration and achieve sustainable growth through their partnership, rising to face and overcome these pressing challenges.”
President Trump praised the announcement on Twitter, calling it a “great investment in American manufacturing”.