TMC to decide Altona engine's fate
BY JAMES STANFORD | 24th Jun 2008
To continue production past 2012, the plant must win the go-ahead from Toyota Motor Company head office in Nagoya, Japan.
This is not unusual, as the plant has previously gone through a similar approval process for each generation of Camry.
With the next-generation Camry planned for introduction in 2012, Toyota Australia is currently pushing its case to continue producing the four-cylinder engine for the car.
It will face competition from other Toyota plants that currently produce Camry engines, including Toyota’s low-cost Thailand plant, which would be able to export engines to Australia duty-free thanks to the free trade agreement.
Toyota’s Altona plant produced more than 112,000 engines last year, most of which were for export Camrys.
The Australian automotive industry will have just two engine plants left in operation after Ford Australia shuts its Geelong I6 plant in mid-2010 and Holden winds down its four-cylinder plant in Melbourne at the end of 2009.
Holden will continue to produce engines at its new V6 engine plant for local and export use and is currently working on a new dedicated LPG version.
Toyota Australia spokesman Peter Griffin said there was nothing unusual about the process of review that TMC carries out for each generation of Camry.
“Whenever they come to a new model it’s up to us to make the case - there is nothing new in that,” Mr Griffin said. “We are in that phase of decision-making globally.”
“We are making the best case to TMC to make the future investment,” he said.
“This is the same cycle that occurred in 2002 and 2006 for those generations of Camry.” Mr Griffin said Toyota Australia would be compared against other plants in the region.
“We are competing against our other affiliates who also want to make new investments,” he said.
Toyota Australia will also learn whether or not it will be given approval to produce the engine for the Camry Hybrid past 2012.
The local version of that car, which will be introduced in 2010, will use a fully imported drivetrain including an electric motor and a four-cylinder engine almost identical to the unit produced at Altona.
Toyota Australia plans to produce 10,000 Camry hybrids a year.
While it is unlikely that Toyota Australia will produce much of the hybrid powertrain other than the petrol engine from 2012, Mr Griffin said the company was hopeful it would be able to increase the local content of the Camry Hybrid.
“We would like to localize as much of it as possible,” he said. “We have a lot of good suppliers here.” Mr Griffin played down the possibility that the 2010 hybrid Camry, with its imported engine, would lead to reduced production of the regular four-cylinder plant at Altona.
“The 10,000 is expected to be incremental, we see it as new volume.” While the existing 2.4-litre four-cylinder Camry engine is produced at Altona, the V6 engine that powers the locally-made Aurion is imported from Japan.