We reported last week that Toyota would be making a major announcement concerning automotive production at its Canadian plants. The details came yesterday as the company confirmed it will be assembling the Lexus NX luxury compact SUV at its Cambridge, Ontario factory as of 2022, including both the regular and hybrid versions.
“Building on our recent Toyota RAV4 announcement and our recent facility modernization investments, we are excited to announce that TMMC has been selected to produce the popular Lexus NX and Lexus NX Hybrid models for the entire North American market.”
- TMMC President Fred Volf
The executive was accompanied during the announcement by Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and by Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier of Ontario and Ontario Minister of Health and Long-Term Care.
Canada has become the biggest producer of Lexus vehicles outside of Japan. Since 2003, 1.3 million vehicles carrying the RX or RX Hybrid nameplates have been built here.
“Together with the company’s recent investments in our facilities, today’s announcement demonstrates the tremendous amount of trust that Toyota has in the Team Members here at TMMC. It has been an honour to be producing a Lexus model, and now we’re being trusted to produce two of them.”
- Fred Volf
Recall that last year, Toyota Canada announced a $1.4 billion investment to update Toyota plants in the country to ready them for the company’s new TNGA (Toyota New Global Architecture) platform.
Toyota Canada has been building vehicles for its parent company for over 30 years, and it currently employs just over 8,500 workers at its Ontario plants in Cambridge and Woodstock. It’s calculated that the automaker has injected $8.5 billion into the Canadian economy since 1985.
