IRAPUATO, MEXICO – Toyoda Gosei North America Corp. is investing $67 million in a 398,000-square-foot plant in central Mexico to supply the automotive industry with plastic components, including radiator grilles and console boxes, the company said Sept. 19.
Toyoda Gosei Irapuato México SA de CV is scheduled to go on-stream in Guanajuato state in April 2016, the Troy, Mich,-based company said in a news release. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd.
Located on a 1.6-million-square-foot plot of land, it will employ 280 in its first three years of operations and the number will increase as the business — and, by implication, investment — grows, the release added.
Toyoda Gosei has three manufacturing facilities in Mexico already. The new company, it said, will “bring coating and other plastic surface-decorating technologies to the country, enabling Toyoda Gosei to supply value-added plastic parts from a location closer to the international Japanese, American and European automakers there.”
It expects production there to be worth $90 million in 2019.
The Toyoda Gosei plants already operating in Mexico are Tapex Mexicana SA de CV, which makes airbags, among other components, Toyoda Gosei Automotive Sealing Mexico SA de CV to produce weatherstrips and Toyoda Gosei Rubber México SA de XCV, which supplies rubber hoses.
Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd. is headquartered in Kiyosu, where it was founded in 1949. It has 94 plants or representative offices in 18 countries.
According to the news release, the U.S. subsidiary owns 95 percent of the new company. “Another company,” which it did not name, owns the remaining 5 percent.
The new company's president is Atsushi Goto, president of Toyoda Gosei Kentucky LLC and of Toyoda Gosei Rubber México SA de CV.
Mexico's automotive industry is expanding rapidly, with billion-dollar investments in new assembly plants being announced regularly. This summer alone Daimler AG, Nissan Motor Co, BMW AG and Kia Motors Corp. all announced plans to build new assembly plants in the country, where light vehicle production this year is expected to total 3.1 million, up from 2.9 million in 2013.