(May 12): Toyota Motor Corp is adding another vehicle assembly plant in India to meet growing domestic demand and boost exports to nearby countries.
The world’s largest automaker announced the new factory will create about 2,800 jobs and be built in the Indian state of Maharashtra at an industrial site more than 300km inland from Mumbai. Toyota aims to start production with its local partner of a new, as yet unspecified SUV model there by the first half of 2029 at an initial rate of 100,000 vehicles a year.
The new facility will join two existing plants in India and a third due to start up later this year that Toyota operates with its partner, the Kirloskar Group. Those factories are located near Bengaluru in southeastern India. With the additional capacity of the new plant in Maharashtra, Toyota’s annual production in India will increase to about 500,000 vehicles, a company spokesperson said.
The Japanese carmaker plans to open as many as three more plants in India, Japan’s Nikkei news service reported earlier this month, boosting capacity to more than one million vehicles by the early 2030s. The Tokyo-based Toyota spokesperson said that report was speculative.
Toyota Kirloskar Motors sales rose 19% to a record 388,801 units last year, including a 42% gain in exports to more than 37,000 vehicles.
Overall new car sales in India grew 5% last year to a record 4.49 million passenger vehicles, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. Exports surged 16% to a new high of 863,000 passenger vehicles, buoyed by shipments to Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
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