Toyota wants North America to become big export base

So long as N. America excludes Mexico I think the idea is great.

 

This makes perfect sense. Apparently TM believes that the US$ will remain weak for some time to come. That being the case exports from the US will be a lot more prfitable than those from Japan.

 

Not to mention Nuclear Power Plants !!!
Especially ones with all the Emergency Standby Power Generators so thoughtfully located on the shoreline, not the high ground!

 

I bet they will export Rav4 to Europe.... Cambridge plant received $545 million investment in 2011:
Toyota invests $545M in Ontario plants | Canadian Manufacturing

It makes a lot of sense as Rav4 is not competitive anymore in Europe due to strong yen rising 50% from 2006, and Rav4 is actually an core model for Toyota in Europe.

 

strong Euro vs USD makes sense.

weak USD, lotsa empty ships going back, they might as well export back to Japan.

 

well euro is bad actually, USD has not been stronger in years.

but for them, it is still a lot cheaper as Yen is on historic levels against both .

And they also sell a ton of Rav4s both in NA and Europe, makes a lot of sense.

 

Yeah, that's a switch - several decades later. But it makes sense for all the same reasons.

 

Now, if only they could start making the Prius here. It's similar to Nissan's move. Nissan has been dollarizing their production for some time, in order to keep production costs low. That doesn't necessarily mean US production: any economy tied to the US dollar will do. But I think Toyota are happy enough with their US production that they'll not go chasing after Mexican production. The US dollar isn't going to strengthen any time soon: the ties to petroleum and China's currency manipulation are going to keep it low, even if interest rates rise a bit in the middle of the decade.

 

It's a no-brainer. The Fed has already stated publicly that it is going to keep interest rates to near-zero until 2014. That is going to keep the U.S. dollar weak relative to the Japanese Yen all the way to 2014 and probably beyond.

 

just a quick power plant note. did you see where the power plant in CA that had the leak last week was located. on the coast. we are just as bad.

 

that doesn't take any crystal ball. The fed says interest will be kept at 0% with no forseeable end. It'll take a HUGE amount of "manufacturing increases" to turn things around ... and right now, we're talking about 4% increases. But yea, Toyota knows we can't buy the cars if we don't have middle class/manufacturing jobs.

 

The U.S. (and Canada) is a major market for Toyota hybrid cars so it does make sense having an assembly plant here. Geographic diversification in manufacturing also reduces detrimental effects of natural disasters which are generally a localized phenomena. As I recall a couple of years ago, Toyota was planning to open another manufacturing plant here in the U.S. specifically for the Prius lineup. Then with the major U.S. economic downturn, Toyota put that plan on hold.

Even with the abundance of idle labor (ie. high unemployment), the U.S. still has one of highest corporate tax rates and with an increasing number of government mandates imposed on businesses, nobody (ie. multinational company's) is rushing to the U.S. to open manufacturing plants here.

Keith

 

Absolutely, it is the mississippi plant. They have closed NUMMI in California and moved corola there. They added prius production to a toyota plant in thailand.

The transplants traditionally have used some parts from the homeland, and buried profits in the transfer. Auto manufacturing jobs have traditionally included benefits like health care if that is the mandate you are thinking of. If you are thinking of ghg, California's carbon mandate, Toyota did close its plant there. I don't think the mandate was the reason.

 

Toyota closed NUMMI since GM just pulled out of it (50% JV) and they couldnt make the numbers work anymore.

As I said before, Thailand is small factory (probably kit production), for Thai market only... Now I found the numbers - 12k units per year, and they price Prius $40k in Thailand.

Toyota kicks off Prius production in Thailand

 

Toyota pulled out, for the same reasons GM pulled out, not because GM pulled out. It was cost and empty factories. Having worked with some ex NUMMI employees gives one perspective
NUMMI to close as Toyota reins in expectations - BusinessWeek

This closure was personally painful to Akido Toyoda.

Well you keep repeating things that are not material, and complete conjecture. The facts are that toyota planned to build lower cost prii in blue water, then canceled these plans to build them in lower cost Thailand. They also added capacity in China. I hope they eventually build prii in the US.

 

lol.

you keep hammering your stuff as usual. As you can read in thailand article, it is 12k a year production for Thailand, which has nothing to do with planned 200k/year production in US.

If you cant understand the difference between 12k local kit production and 200k full blown factory, then I really dont know what else to tell you. Same goes for China, kit production, several thousand a year, for Chinese sales to avoid taxation. In both cases, most parts coming from Japan and simply put together (kit cars).

Simple truth is that instead of building small cars in US, they decided it is more profitable to expand production of large cars that mostly sell in the US.

Toyota is building new factories everywhere. In last few months they announced more than a billion dollars in new investments in North America to expand production and quality. At the same time, you bet they are building new factories in rest of the world. Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc, are huge markets for Toyota, where they sell a lot of cars, and own almost half of the market. You bet they better invest into local production there as well. For FY2012, most of Toyota profits came from those countries... not Japan, or US, especially not from Europe. Yet, most of toyota's capital expenses are in Japand and North America.

In fact, someone from Indonesia or Thailand, should easily question why is Toyota investing more money in US than in their countries, where they are more profitable and hold larger share of the market.