Article from Toronto's Globe & Mail – Toyota Revs up plans for Ontario plant:
Toyota announced a 50% increase in planned production at it's new plant being built in Woodstock Ontario growing the initial jobs for the plant to 2,000 from 1,300. The additional 50,000 vehicles will likely be a Lexus derivative of the RAV 4.
Real Tanguay, President of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada reiterated that the Woodstock plant will be a flexible manufacturing facility enabling Toyota to respond quickly to changes in market conditions if necessary.
While Toyota's growing market share and record sales in the US and Canada easily justifies the extra investment, the revised plan also shows that Toyota is confident about the health of the North American new vehicle market as a whole.
It's easy to see why the analysts predict continuing market share gains for Toyota at the expense of domestics. If the market continues to demand somewhere in the range of 17 million vehicles annually, and Toyota is able to sell all 50,000 incremental units they will have gained another 3/10ths of a share.
It's important to realize that while companies like Ford are implementing sweeping re-structuring plans complete with all the disruption and turmoil of rapid and uncertain change, in perfect form Toyota continues to “work like the tortoise” and continuously grow their business. The good news for the domestics is that a strong, steady market will give turnaround plans the best chance for success – provided new products hit the mark with consumers.
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