Toyota to Invest $200 Million in U.S. Engine Production

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to boost its North American output of V-6 engines by investing $150 million at its engine factory in Huntsville, Ala., and a combined $50 million at two casting plants.

At the Alabama facility, the new spending is in addition to the $80 million expansion the company announced in May 2012.

The original program aimed to add an additional 216,000 units of annual V-6 capacity in Huntsville for a total of 362,000 engines by early next year. That was to bring the factory's total annual capacity for four-cylinder, V-6 and V-8 engines to more than 700,000 units.

Toyota now says it expects the plant to reach 750,000 units of annual capacity by that time, presumably hiking V-6 output to nearly 412,000 units.

The other investment will go to increasing machining capacity at casting facilities in Troy, Mo., and Jackson, Tenn., run by Toyota's Bodine Aluminum subsidiary. The factories will supply cylinder heads and blocks for V-6 engines to the Huntsville plant. Those improvements are due for completion by July 2015.

The projects bring Toyota's new investment commitments in North American over the past two years to $2 billion and 4,000 new jobs, the company says.