Jump to content
Create New...
  • William Maley
    William Maley

    The Curtain Falls: Toyota Announces The End Of Australian Production In 2017

      Toyota joins Ford and Holden with the departure of production in Australia.


    And then there were none.

    Toyota announced today at their Altona plant on the western outskirts of Melbourne that the company would end local production in 2017 and transition into a sales and distribution company. The move will affect 2,500 manufacturing jobs.

    "This is devastating news for all of our employees who have dedicated their lives to the company during the past 50 years,"said Toyota Australia President and CEO Max Yasuda.

    "While we have been undertaking the enormous task of transforming our business during the past two years, our people have joined us on the same journey, which makes it even more difficult to announce this decision. We did everything that we could to transform our business, but the reality is that there are too many factors beyond our control that make it unviable to build cars in Australia. Although the company has made profits in the past, our manufacturing operations have continued to be loss making despite our best efforts."

    The decision comes a few months after Holden and Ford announcing they would be shuttering their production operations in Australia and become a a sales and distribution company.

    Toyota's reasoning behind the closing is the same as Ford and Holden; the high value of the Australian dollar, high cost of production, and new free trade agreements.

    Source: Drive.com.au, Toyota

    William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected]or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

    Press Release is on Page 2


    10 February 2014

    TOYOTA AUSTRALIA ANNOUNCES FUTURE PLAN FOR LOCAL MANUFACTURING

    Toyota Australia today announced that it will stop building cars in Australia by the end of 2017 and become a national sales and distribution company.

    This means that local manufacturing of the Camry, Camry Hybrid and Aurion vehicles, as well as the production of four cylinder engines, will cease by the end of 2017.

    The decision was not based on any single factor. The market and economic factors contributing to the decision include the unfavourable Australian dollar that makes exports unviable, high costs of manufacturing and low economies of scale for our vehicle production and local supplier base.

    Together with one of the most open and fragmented automotive markets in the world and increased competitiveness due to current and future Free Trade Agreements, it is not viable to continue building cars in Australia.

    Toyota Australia President and CEO, Max Yasuda, was joined by Toyota Motor Corporation President and CEO, Akio Toyoda, as he made the announcement to employees late this afternoon.

    "This is devastating news for all of our employees who have dedicated their lives to the company during the past 50 years," Mr Yasuda said.

    "While we have been undertaking the enormous task of transforming our business during the past two years, our people have joined us on the same journey, which makes it even more difficult to announce this decision

    "We did everything that we could to transform our business, but the reality is that there are too many factors beyond our control that make it unviable to build cars in Australia.

    "Although the company has made profits in the past, our manufacturing operations have continued to be loss making despite our best efforts.

    "Our focus will now be to work with our employees, suppliers, government and the unions as we transition to a national sales and distribution company. Support services will be available to our employees and we will do everything that we can to minimise the impact of this decision on our employees and suppliers."

    Mr Yasuda said approximately 2,500 employees directly involved with manufacturing will be impacted when the plant stops building cars in 2017.

    There will also be an impact on the company's corporate divisions, which will be studied over the coming months to determine what roles and functions will remain in the future.

    Mr Yasuda said that Toyota was also committed to providing support to the industry as it prepares for the end of vehicle manufacturing in Australia.

    "We will work with our key stakeholders to determine how to provide the best support to our employees, suppliers and local communities during the coming years," Mr Yasuda said.

    "Not only do we need to ensure our local suppliers and employees can plan for their future, we also need to make sure that we continue to produce high quality vehicles and engines for our domestic and export customers."

    Toyota Australia will continue to be involved in its local communities and employ thousands of people both directly and indirectly via its extensive dealership network.

    It is the company's intention to import the Camry and Aurion vehicles beyond 2017, along with the entire range of Toyota passenger and commercial vehicles.

    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments



    Join the conversation

    You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
    Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

    Guest
    Add a comment...

    ×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

      Only 75 emoji are allowed.

    ×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

    ×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

    ×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • google-news-icon.png



  • google-news-icon.png

  • Subscribe to Cheers & Gears

    Cheers and Gears Logo

    Since 2001 we've brought you real content and honest opinions, not AI-generated stuff with no feeling or opinions influenced by the manufacturers.

    Please consider subscribing. Subscriptions can be as little as $1.75 a month, and a paid subscription drops most ads.*
     

    You can view subscription options here.

    *a very limited number of ads contain special coupon deals for our members and will show

  • Similar Content

  • Posts

    • Right.  It's not the aircraft themselves, but the haste and sloppiness.  ("Haste makes waste.")  This 777 X is ambitious and the folding wingtips are novel.  They will be very late with delivering this plane.  I now like some Boeing and some Airbus.  It's a mix.  In the recent past, I took a ride on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and I definitely like it more than the Airbus 350 (even though the Airbus 350 has that photogenic curved winglets).  The cabin fatigue from flying is much reduced on the Dreamliner. Yesterday, I was on two domestic Boeing 737 Max 8 segments back to back on Southwest.  I like its newer features - ambient lighting, larger bins, a little quieter.  So, if it's working, it's a very nice rendition of the 737.  It's too bad that their newest version of this storied workhorse had to be tainted.  I get on and sigh.  If it keeps a clean track record going forward, people may be less weirded out as the statistics may become better. It is.  However, I'm not a fan of the leg design, which is also now popular on sofas.  The biggest turnoff for me in sofas - when I bought a sleeper for another room with the last stimulus money - was the amount of product that had nailheads all over the place.
    • ^^^  I think the last pic is an AI generated picture.    YUCK!!! I mean, if it is one, its a GREAT image, the technology is both awesome and scary. Very real. But fake...and that is the yuck part of it all.  The fakeness.  I like REALITY.  
    • I became a hater when I realized Toyota is just another same ole same ole corporate greed company like any other and when I realized that they had sheeple followers that they had brainwashed thinking that Toyota can never do any harm.  It wasnt a right away hatred either.  It took time. I first noticed something was off about Toyota with the aforementioned engine sludge thing.  And it took years after that when I started questioning folk that drove Toyotas and then incident after incident happened and yet nobody ever was pissed about Toyota's failures.  It all came to a boiling point with me with the unintended acceleration debacle and had it NOT for Toyota settling out of court of billions of dollars, I myself would have chucked it to stupid drivers, but Toyota plead guilty quietly and paid that tremendous fine.  And it peeved me more to see that AMERICAN media kept that quiet also, but also downplyed the WHOLE thing by them ALSO blaming the American driver coming up with excuse after excuse defending Toyota.  And then I read (call it a consipracy theory if you want to) a report (not on the internet) that Japanese automakers convinced the American buyer to perform their regular maintenance at the dealerships and when their was a problem akin to catastrophic failure with the vehicle, the dealership would repair the problem without the owner knowing about the problem and all that was also subsidized by the Japanese government and the WORST offenders of this were Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Subaru in the 1980s.  Another reason why I dont like this company is that they stopped producing cars for the enthusiast for a little while.  Boring appliance after boring appliance made especially for dumb people that would be better off using public transportation. And in more recent times, better calling an Uber.   I like some cars of theirs. I have pointed this out plenty of times.  No need for me to justify what cars and trucks I like from them.  But you did mention the Lexus LC500 and yeah!  THAT would be one awesome creation.  Id take mine in coupe form though. But if I was doing this car MY way, Id LS/LT swap it.  Nothing crazy done to the engine, just with enough HP and torque to best Lexus' original efforts.  500HP and 500ft/lbs.  In HP, its not much more than what Lexus done, but its the torque figures that make the difference in my make belief dream LC 500. 
    • I actually like the look but at near 9,000 lbs., holy smokes! Instant pot hole maker lol..
  • Who's Online (See full list)

  • My Clubs

×
×
  • Create New...

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search