Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia Celebrates 25 Years of Operations
Since 1996, Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia has made nearly 20 million powertrains — averaging at a little over 92 powertrains per minute. In tandem with the anniversary celebrations, the Toyota USA Foundation is awarding a $189,000 grant to the West Virginia University Institute of Technology to support after-school computer science in middle schools.
“This is an investment in our future,” said Carolyn Long, WVU Tech campus president. “The program will help young people see the opportunities ahead and give them the tools to pursue interests in robotics, cybersecurity, game development and more. We hope that this will be a model program that will expand throughout the state.”
Hybrid Transaxle: Developed for the Toyota Sienna minivan
Shamaya Morris, group production leader at TMMWV, says that being able to set up and program robots to do repetitive and heavy-lifting tasks is at the heart of what the plant is all about, making Toyota’s investment even more relevant.
TMMWV currently employs over 2,000 people and, over the past 25 years, has invested more than $1.8 billion in the state of West Virginia. It’s the only Toyota plant in North America that makes both engines and transmissions as well as hybrid transaxles. Toyota has expanded the plant 11 times since its inception. The most recent one involved a $210 million investment to upgrade the engine production line and 100 new jobs to prepare for the new RAV4 SUV.
Srini Matam, president of TMMWV, says the plant is well positioned for the next quarter of a century as it is “deeply engaged in hybrid technologies and robotics.” Robotics will no doubt remain important in the years to come, but it’s hard to imagine hybrid technologies carrying the plant into the future as the rest of the industry rapidly ramps up electric vehicle development.
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.