Subaru's US plant to produce Toyota Camry

Media Information
March 15, 2006

Subaru's US plant to produce Toyota Camry

Fuji Heavy Industries, the maker of Subaru vehicles, and Toyota Motor Corporation, have announced that the Toyota Camry is to be built at Subaru of Indiana Automotive, Inc. (SIA), FHI’s North American factory.

The companies also announced that FHI will develop Toyota vehicles.

They will further consider development of an FHI hybrid vehicle, based on the Toyota Hybrid System.

SIA currently produces the Subaru Legacy (know in Australia as Liberty), Outback, Baja and Tribeca on its two production lines.

It will produce Camry for the North American market, with a production capacity of 100,000 a year, starting around northern spring of 2007.

SIA Subaru production will be consolidated onto one line. Following modifications, the other line will introduce Toyota production technology. The Toyota Production System will be used for Camry.

The new arrangement will enable SIA to achieve an annual production capacity of about 240,000 vehicles. It is expected to create about 1000 additional jobs at SIA once full Camry production is underway.

In preparation, about 10 FHI production engineers started working with TMC on February 1.

Both companies intend a prompt decision on a project for Toyota vehicle development by FHI. It is expected to involve about 100 FHI engineers.

The dispatch to TMC of about 20 FHI vehicle engineers started on February 1. This is to discuss development requests from TMC and mid-to-long-term joint product development, as well as advancing the technological development capabilities of both companies.

The companies agreed to consider a detailed framework for development of an FHI hybrid vehicle based on the Toyota Hybrid System, including provision of Toyota hybrid technology, personnel exchanges and other issues.

Both companies recognized the need to continue discussion on a comprehensive business cooperation framework, made possible through even stronger ties and geared toward advancing their long-term mutual competitiveness.

The announcement is the result of a memorandum of understanding signed by FHI and TMC last October, when Toyota took an 8 percent share holding in FHI.

It stated that they would begin looking into the synergies of shared management resources for research and development and production, as well as the effects of supplementing each other’s technological development.

Outline of production of Toyota vehicles at SIA

Product line-up: Camry for North America
Production capacity: Approximately 100,000 units/year
(SIA as a whole is to produce 240,000 units/year)
New investment: Approximately 230 million U.S. dollars
New employment: Approximately 1000 (at full production)
Start of production: Spring of 2007

ENDS

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