In $3.6B Move, Toyota Takes Tacoma Production to Texas

Toyota is steering its best-known midsize pickup back to Texas in a multibillion-dollar bet on US manufacturing. The automaker says it will spend $3.6 billion to add a second Tacoma assembly line to its San Antonio plant by 2030, reports the Wall Street Journal, creating about 2,000 jobs and boosting annual output there by roughly 150,000 trucks. Production is now split between two Mexican factories in Baja California and Guanajuato; the former will shift to Texas, while the Guanajuato plant keeps building Tacomas.

The move aims to ease steep US tariffs that helped deliver an $8.5 billion hit to Toyota's North American operating income and pushed the unit into the red. The timing of the move is interesting, notes CNBC, coming a week after the US refused to extend its trade deal with Mexico and Canada. With its North American plants already running above 90% capacity and US sales edging higher in a soft market, Toyota is joining other automakers expanding stateside, especially for profitable trucks and SUVs.