Press Release
Production of Camry Hybrid to Start in Late 2006
Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America (TMMNA) announced the company's first North American gas-electric hybrid production will be at its Georgetown, Ky., plant – Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. (TMMK) – when production of a Camry hybrid begins in late 2006.
TMMK will have the capacity to build approximately 48,000 Camry hybrid vehicles per year. The addition of hybrid production to TMMK will include a $10 million investment in the plant.
TMMK was established in 1986 and is Toyota's largest plant in North America. It employs approximately 7,000 team members and currently builds the Camry, Avalon and Solara. The plant has the capacity to build 500,000 vehicles annually. Since its inception, TMMK has built nearly six million vehicles, and the plant's current investment is nearly $5.3 billion.
Toyota expects capacity and employment to stay the same at TMMK with the addition of the Camry hybrid. The production of these hybrid vehicles will take place on the plant's existing lines, and no new construction is planned.
"This is a proud day for the entire state of Kentucky," said Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher, who attended the news conference from Japan via satellite. "For nearly 20 years, Toyota has called Kentucky home. We provide the kind of favorable business climate that encourages companies like Toyota to continue to invest here."
"Once the decision was reached to make a hybrid version of our best-selling vehicle – the Camry – the Georgetown plant was the natural choice for Toyota's first North American hybrid production," added Gary Convis, president of TMMK and a managing officer of Toyota Motor Corporation. "Our team members' hard work and dedication over the last 20 years will ensure that the production of these cutting-edge vehicles in Kentucky will also be hugely successful."
"The continued success of Prius has demonstrated consumers' growing demand for hybrid vehicles," said Jim Press, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. executive vice president and COO and a managing officer of Toyota Motor Corporation. "Hybrid production in the U.S. will allow us to be even more responsive to the desires of our customers."
Specific vehicle details on the Camry hybrid will be released at a later date. The Camry hybrid joins a growing Toyota and Lexus hybrid lineup in the U.S., which currently includes the groundbreaking Toyota Prius and the Lexus RX 400h luxury hybrid sport utility vehicle (SUV), which reached dealerships in April. Next month, the Toyota Highlander Hybrid mid-size SUV will go on sale, and the 2007 Lexus GS 450h hybrid luxury sedan is targeted for sale in the spring of 2006.
By 2006, Toyota will have the annual capacity to build 1.66 million cars and trucks, 1.44 million engines, and 600,000 automatic transmissions in North America. The company's direct investment is nearly $16.6 billion, with annual purchasing of parts, materials, goods and services from North American suppliers totaling nearly $25 billion. Toyota's North American-produced vehicles include the Avalon, Camry, Corolla, Matrix, Sienna, Solara, Sequoia, Tacoma, Tundra, and the Lexus RX330.
