Toyota investing in southwestern Ontario production despite auto sector uncertainty

Toyota is reconfiguring two of its southwestern Ontario manufacturing plants so that batteries can be assembled onsite for use in the next generation of RAV4 vehicles.

The Woodstock and Cambridge factories make the SUVs, with Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC) saying the battery packs have until now been assembled in Japan, then shipped to Ontario.

"TMMC will receive battery modules from Toyota's battery manufacturing plant in North Carolina, which TMMC will then assemble into finished battery packs," the company said in a statement.

Confirmation of the move from the Japanese automaker comes at a time when the impact of U.S. tariffs, and a changing electric vehicle (EV) market, are reverberating through the auto sector, including in southwestern Ontario.

In April, General Motors announced a major reduction in staffing and production at its CAMI assembly plant in Ingersoll, which it attributed to a shift in demand. In Windsor, workers at the Stellantis Windsor Assembly Plant were subjected to months of uncertainty and work stoppages, as the automaker reacted to U.S. tariffs.

In May, Honda delayed plans to open a major EV plant in Alliston, near Barrie, over tariffs and a slowdown in EV sales.

TMMC said it hasn't had any reductions or changes of plan through the period of uncertainty.

The shift the automaker has planned is a matter of efficiency, a spokesperson said, as individual battery modules are more efficient to ship than assembled battery packs

Folding in the process of assembling the packs will require some retooling, but the company wasn't willing to share what that process looks like.

The number of people employed at TMMC isn't expected to increase meaningfully despite the changes coming to the operation, with a spokesperson saying the workforce "will remain relatively stable."

"While battery assembly is additional work, we expect to have some efficiencies in other areas," the statement reads.

The company said, with the 6th generation RAV4 set to start production early next year, the retooling will happen progressively leading up to the start of production.

TMMC has three plants in Ontario that employ roughly 8,500 people. Two are in Cambridge, one of which produces variants of the Lexus RX350. The remaining Cambridge plant and the Woodstock plant both produce the RAV4, and RAV4 hybrid.