WASHINGTON/DETROIT: Toyota and rival Mazda are expected to announce plans today to build a US$1.6 (RM6.9bil) US assembly plant as part of a new joint venture, a person briefed on the matter said.
The plant will be capable of producing 300,000 vehicles a year, with production divided between the two automakers, and will employ about 4,000 people when it opens in 2021, the person said.
A new auto plant would be a major boost to US President Donald Trump, who campaigned on promises to increase manufacturing and expand employment for American autoworkers.
The source, who was not authorised to speak to the media and requested anonymity, said the plant in a yet-to-be-determined US location was expected to build Toyota Corolla cars and a Mazda crossover utility vehicle.
Japan's Nikkei reported earlier on Thursday that Toyota would take a roughly 5 percent stake in Mazda to develop key electric vehicle technologies and jointly build a factory in the United States.
The source confirmed the Japanese carmakers planned future joint efforts on electric vehicles.
Toyota said the two companies have been exploring various areas of collaboration under a May 2015 agreement, and added that the group intended to submit a proposal to its board on Friday regarding Mazda. It did not comment further.
"The industry pace of electrification has really picked up," Toyota chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada, widely known as the father of the Prius hybrid, said at an event outside Tokyo on Friday, declining to comment on the US plant or a Mazda deal.
