From Wire Reports
Toyota Motor Corp. is expected to build two more assembly plants in North America by 2010, taking its bid for a larger part of the world’s largest auto market even closer home to its chief rival General Motors, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
The story, which quoted unnamed senior Toyota executives, said the company would likely announce a site for its seventh assembly plant in North America by the end of 2005, and open a site search for number eight soon thereafter.
Toyota is opening this month a plant in Mexico to make small pickups and truck beds, and is finishing a new factory in Texas to build large pickups.
Toyota plants normally employ 4,000 to 5,000 people and represent investments of at least $1 billion, the Journal wrote.
U.S. auto sales have been flat, and the intention of Toyota to pursue the market even more aggressively is expected to have large fallout.
Detroit’s “Big Three” — GM, Chrysler and Ford — are struggling to cover soaring health care costs for their unionized workers that add 1,000 to 2,000 dollars more per vehicle than cars produced in Toyota’s new North American operations, the Journal reported.
Toyota sold 2.06 million autos in the U.S. last year, a 10.4 percent boost over the year before, and intends to corner 15 percent of the U.S. auto market.
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