05/02/03
By GINA HANNAH
Times Business Writer ginah@htimes.com
When Toyota rolls the first of its V-8 engines off the production line in Huntsville later this month, it will be the latest in a series of milestones giving Alabama a reputation as a automotive center, Tag Taguchi, Toyota's chief of North American operations, said Thursday.
Taguchi, president and chief executive officer of Toyota Motor North America Inc., was the keynote speaker at the Japan-America Society of Alabama annual dinner Thursday.
He said the Huntsville engine plant, in North Huntsville Industrial Park, is part of an industry growth that will place Alabama third out of 13 Southern states in vehicle production by 2005.
Taguchi said that during the mid-1980s, the company "recognized that, in order to be close to the consumer, it made sense to start building cars here."
Toyota's first North American venture was a partnership with General Motors in California. The venture helped GM learn from Toyota's production system, Taguchi said, and "Toyota gained confidence that the Toyota production system could be learned by an American work force.
In addition to Huntsville, North American locations where Toyota has plants include Kentucky, Indiana, Ontario, British Columbia, California, Missouri and West Virginia. The automaker announced earlier this year it would build an assembly plant in Austin, Texas.
Taguchi said the automaker aims to sell 2 million vehicles annually in the United States by the middle of the decade.
"Toyota believes that the key to globalization is localization," he said. "Producing cars and trucks in the countries where we sell them makes good business sense."
Toyota currently has more than 34,000 employees in North America and sold nearly 2 million cars and trucks in North America last year.
"Localization means more than just building locally - it also means buying locally," Taguchi said.
