Toyota: Brexit “Fog” Threatens U.K. Plant

Toyota Motor Corp. warns that its factory in England will be in jeopardy if the country continues to dither over access to European markets after the U.K. exits the European Union, Reuters reports.

“We cannot stay in this kind of fog,” President Didier Leroy, who heads Toyota’s business planning, tells reporters at the Tokyo auto show. “If competitiveness is not secured, we have to think about what we will do in the future.”

In March Toyota said it would invest £240 million ($317 million) to prepare its Burnaston factory for a next-generation platform for various models, including the Auris five-door hatch currently made there.

The factory normally exports 80% of its output to Europe. The company emphasized at the time that securing low- or duty-free relations with EU members would be crucial to the plant’s future.

But since then, the British government has been unable to finalize even an interim deal with the EU. The U.K. is expected to formally exit the EU in March 2019. Leroy implies that Toyota might relocate Burnaston’s production to Europe if negotiations continue to be “postponed and postponed again.”