Toyota and Mazda have entered a new business and capital alliance and announced they will together build a new, $1.6 billion automotive assembly plant in the United States that will create 4,000 jobs and produce approximately 300,000 units per year.
Though neither company specified where the facility would be built, they did say it would be operational by 2021. Toyota will use it to produce its Corolla model while Mazda will build a new, as-of-yet unrevealed crossover.
Toyota had originally intended to build the Corolla at another new factory in Guanajuato, Mexico, but has now announced it will instead build the Tacoma pickup truck at the Mexico plant while Corolla production is moved to the United States. Currently, all Corollas are manufactured in Ontario and Mississippi.
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Though Toyota already builds a great deal of its cars in the US at its Kentucky, Indiana, and Texas plants, Mazda has not done so since its partnership with Ford fell through in the last decade.
As part of their agreement, Toyota and Mazda confirmed the former would pay $450 million for a 5% stake in the latter while Mazda would buy a stake of the same value in Toyota. The two Japanese automakers will also jointly develop technologies for electric vehicles as well as advanced safety technologies and connected technologies.
There’s no doubt the plan was in part devised to diffuse Donald Trump, who came down on Toyota when it announced the Mexico plant and who would have likely turned to Mazda next for not producing any cars in the US despite selling there.
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