Toyota Delays Launch of New Plant in Mexico

Toyota Motor Corp. says production at its new factory in Guanajuato, Mexico, won’t begin until the first half of 2020, roughly a year later than planned.

The $1 billion facility had been scheduled to begin making Corolla sedans in 2019 at a rate of 200,000 units per year. But last January newly elected President Donald Trump threatened to slap a hefty border tax on cars imported from the facility.

Last week Toyota announced it will produce the Corollas instead at a new plant in the southern U.S. to be operated jointly with Mazda Motors Corp. beginning in 2021.

In the meantime, Toyota is reconfiguring the Guanajuato complex and its supply chain to make Tacoma midsize pickup trucks. The company currently assembles about 90,000 such trucks per year at a small facility in Baja, Mexico.

Until the joint venture with Mazda launches operations in 2021, Toyota says, it will supply the American market with Corollas made at its factories in Mississippi and Japan.