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Toyota to expand Baja plant

$37 million plan to boost Tacoma pickup numbers
By Diane Lindquist
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 21, 2006

Toyota is continuing to expand operations at its factory in Baja California, announcing yesterday that it plans to spend $37 million to make more Tacoma pickup trucks there this year.

An additional 20,000 units of the pickup will be produced at the plant, which is located between Tijuana and Tecate.

Total capacity will be increased to 50,000 vehicles, up 67 percent from the plant's current production of 30,000 units.

The factory also will increase output of Tacoma steel beds to 200,000 from 180,000, the company announced.

A spokesman for the automaker, Daniel Sieger, said the expansion will result in increased employment, but it's uncertain how many workers above the 800 employed there will be needed.

"We're studying that right now," Sieger said in an interview. "It's not been determined."

Toyota had the fastest U.S. sales growth among major automakers last year and has forecast a sales gain of as much as 10 percent in the United States this year. That would follow increases of 9.7 percent in 2005 and 10 percent the previous year.

The company trails only General Motors in global sales.

Only Tacomas and Tacoma truck beds are produced at the Baja California plant. The vehicles are sold in both the United States and Mexico.

"We've been very pleased with our Mexican operations since we began in 2004, and demand for the Tacoma continues to increase," Sieger said. "It was a natural fit to expand production at the plant."

Gov. Eugenio Elorduy Walther of Baja California joined state and local leaders in making the announcement about the plans.

"When Toyota first came to Baja California, they promised stable employment with the prospect of long-term growth," he said. "This expansion reinforces Toyota's ongoing commitment to Tijuana, Baja California and Mexico."

Toyota also builds 150,000 Tacomas a year in Fremont at a plant it shares with General Motors. Parts produced at that factory are used at the plant in Baja California.

To support the increased production in Mexico, Toyota will invest $3 million at the Fremont plant, Sieger said.

The Baja California plant, which cost $140 million when it opened in 2004, is on a 700-acre site on the eastern fringe of Tijuana.

At first, Toyota planned to produce only truck beds at the factory, but before it opened, the automaker announced that it would assemble the complete Tacoma pickup there.

The company also has assembly plants in Georgetown, Ky.; Princeton, Ind., and Cambridge, Ontario. A sixth North American assembly plant is to open in San Antonio later this year, and the company has broken ground for a seventh in Woodstock, Ontario, which is expected to open in 2008.

By 2008, Toyota expects to be producing 1.83 million cars and trucks in North America, almost double the 962,823 built in 1998.