Toyota Aims at Increasing Production in Ontario Plant

To say that Toyota had a rough year it basically a no-brainer under the current economic conditions. However, although it’s no longer the biggest automaker worldwide and it took some serious hits in North America, the Japanese are not surrendering. Even more, all the North American plants are running overtime in order to cope with the increasing demand and the low stocks of vehicles.

Its latest production increase was registered in Toyota’s plant in Woodstock, Ontario. The car manufacturer has to cover the demand for the RAV4, so officials said that it will immediately start hiring 800 workers in order to start a second shift at the plant.

“Despite the market decline, the model is selling better than last year,” Ray Tanguay, executive vice president in charge of Toyota's North American manufacturing and engineering group, said in a phone interview with Automotive News. “This is a vote of confidence that the market is recovering.”

By the end of November, Toyota managed to sell 132,346 RAV4s only in the United States, which means the sales are up 3 percent as compared to last year’s 128,225 units in the same period.

This comes as a great news, considering the Japanese automaker was getting deeper in financial trouble, as Toyota said in September it will close the NUMMI factory because it was not profitable. According to Tanguay, Toyota is still considering the building of a $1.3 billion Prius factory in Tupelo, Miss. This project was stopped in midstream last year due to the lack of funds.

“There is more demand than capacity, but we're not going to add any capacity,” Tanguay said about the Ontario plant. “We're watching the market very closely,” he said. “We stay very committed to Tupelo.”