Brexit caveat accompanies Auris production boost at Toyota Burnaston

Advanced Manufacturing

News that Toyota will build the third generation Auris model at its Burnaston plant has been issued with a caveat that ‘free and frictionless trade must continue between the UK and Europe’.

Auris
TNGA platform

Toyota Manufacturing UK’s (TMUK) factory in Deeside, North Wales will be the main source for its engines for the Auris, which will make its world premiere at the Geneva Motor Show on March 6th when more product information will be revealed.

The decision follows Toyota Motor Europe’s (TME) announcement in March 2017that over £240m would be invested into TMUK.

The factory is being upgraded with new equipment, technologies and systems to enable manufacture of vehicles on the Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA) platform.

Dr Johan van Zyl, TME President and CEO, said: “Producing TNGA based vehicles locally is a key part of our plan to strengthen the global competitiveness of our plants.

“Today’s announcement that we will manufacture the new Auris at Burnaston, with most engines to be supplied from Deeside, shows our confidence in the skills and capabilities of our TMUK members.

“As a company, we are doing what we can to secure the competitiveness of our UK operations as a leading manufacturing centre for our European business. With around 85 per cent of our UK vehicle production exported to European markets, continued free and frictionless trade between the UK and Europe will be vital for future success.”

TNGA was announced by Toyota in September 2015 as a way of streamlining the way the company designs, engineers and manufactures vehicles by standardising the size and position of key components within standard new vehicle platforms.

According to Toyota, the long-term benefits are predicted to be smaller, flexible factories with production lines that can quickly and easily be adapted to meet different manufacturing requirements.

By 2020, the majority of Toyota’s global models will be built using TNGA platforms. TNGA already underpins the new, fourth-generation Prius and the all-new, Toyota C-HR crossover, which is built in Turkey.

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