Toyota has announced an investment of more than R6,1-billion in South Africa to facilitate production of the new Hilux and Fortuner in Durban.
This move represents the biggest single investment Toyota has made to date.
Some R1,9-billion of the Prospecton plant investment covers supplier tooling, while R1,4-billion will be used for in-house tooling. The remainder has been set aside for investment in in-house facilities and buildings to cater for the new press machines.
Toyota’s component plants, situated across the road from the main plants, have also undergone major “facilitisation”, with the chassis plant being completely reworked.
New facilities have been furthermore installed for the manufacture of a variety of other in-house components, including the new instrument panel, exhaust assembly, brake and clutch assembly, rear bumper reinforcement, catalytic converter, rear and front axle assemblies as well as the painted resin front bumpers.
Over and above Toyota’s investment, the automaker says its suppliers have made substantial investments amounting to more than R1,7-billion, while also attracting five new international suppliers. This, in turn, has had a knock-on effect on production capacity at the Prospecton plant, which has now increased from 120 000 units to 140 000 units per annum.
Toyota South Africa Motors is the second largest global manufacturer of the Hilux and Fortuner (behind Thailand) and the only facility tasked with building Hilux models that meet the new Euro 6 regulatory demands. Exports are forecast to be slightly more than 50% of the local arm’s total 2016 Hilux and Fortuner production.
That means more than 55 000 new Durban-built Hilux and Fortuners will be exported this year to 74 countries across the world. These exports include both right-hand-drive and left-hand-drive variants and consist of hundreds of derivatives.
The South African operation will also be exporting new components to Thailand for the use in that country’s production facilities.
