Toyota has told its workers it will cease manufacturing in Australia by the end of 2017, putting the final nail in the local car industry’s coffin. Toyota’s shocking announcement comes after Holden declared it would stop building cars locally and transition to a national sales company last December, and Ford doing the same last May.
Around 2500 Toyota workers at the company’s Altona plant were told the devastating news today, which has apparently left everyone gutted. In a letter handed to workers, the Japanese carmaker announced the final iteration of the Camry would be last vehicle locally produced by the company.
In the letter, Toyota President and chief executive Max Yasuda said the announcement was “devastating news for all our employees who have dedicated their lives to the company during the past 50 years”.
While we have been undertaking the enormous task of transforming our business during the past two years, our people have joined us on the same journey, which makes it even more difficult to announce this decision. We did everything that we could to transform our business, but the reality is that there are too many factors beyond our control that make it unviable to build cars in Australia.
Further details of Toyota’s announcement will come to light in the coming days, so stay posted.
