Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday it will begin producing automatic transmission gears for its vehicles in the United States at the beginning of 2006, marking the first Toyota production venture of its kind outside Japan.
Toyota said it will make an additional $80 million investment, as well as create 50 new jobs, at Toyota Motor Manufacturing, West Virginia, Inc. to make gears for automatic transmissions produced there.
The West Virginia subsidiary, based in Buffalo, currently makes engines and automatic transmissions for Toyota vehicles.
The additional investment will bring total investment at the plant to more than $800 million, while the number of employees at the plant will rise to more than 1,000, Japan's largest automaker said.
By 2006, Toyota will have the capacity to build 1.66 million cars and trucks and 1.29 million engines annually in North America, where the company currently employs more than 36,000 people, it said.