The world’s biggest hybrid maker will make about 7,000 Camry Hybrids a year at Kuozui Motors’ Kuanying Plant, which will be the seventh location outside of Japan to make Toyota hybrid vehicles. Toyota, which owns 65 percent of Kuozui Motors, is selling the Camry Hybrid in Taiwan at a base price of 1.07 million Taiwanese dollars, or about $36,000 U.S. at today’s exchange rates.
Toyota started selling an updated version of its Camry Hybrid in the U.S. last November and said last year that it expected to sell at least 50,000 units a year in the U.S., or about 11 percent of all Camrys sold domestically. Toyota boosted the model’s fuel economy by seven miles per gallon and cut the U.S. base price by about $1,000.
Kuozui Motors’ Kuanying Plant, which was opened in 1995, can produce as many as 65,000 vehicles a year. Other models produced at the factory include the conventional Camry and the Yaris.
Toyota City, Japan, February 16, 2012-Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) announces that its production affiliate in Taiwan, Kuozui Motors, Ltd. (Kuozui), today marked the start of production and sales of the “Camry Hybrid” in Taiwan.
Production of the Camry Hybrid at Kuozui’s Kuanying Plant in Taiwan’s Taoyuan County began on February 15, making the plant Toyota’s seventh hybrid-vehicle production site outside Japan. Initial annual production is set at approximately 7,000 vehicles, to be the exclusive supply of the domestic market.
Sales of the vehicle, ranging in price from 1,069,000 to 1,399,000 Taiwan dollars, began today.
Marking the development, Kuozui President Haruaki Hoshino said: “We are very proud to begin production of the state-of-the-art Camry Hybrid at our Kuanying Plant. With environmental and energy-conservation consciousness in Taiwan rising every year, we hope to supply the Taiwanese market with as many hybrids as possible.”
TMC considers addressing environmental issues to be one of its most important management tasks and is actively working to promote hybrids and other environment-friendly vehicles. At the end of 2011, global cumulative sales of TMC-produced hybrid vehicles reached approximately 3.6 million units.
Overview of Kuozui Motors, Ltd. (as of January 31, 2012)
| Establishment | April 1984 | ||
| Location | Jungli City, Taoyuan County, Taiwan | ||
| Chairman | Su Yannhuei | ||
| President | Haruaki Hoshino | ||
| Capital ratio | TMC: 65% | ||
| Hotai Motor (a joint venture of Taiwanese investors, TMC and Hino Motors): 30% | |||
| Hino Motors: 5% | |||
| Capital | 3.46 billion Taiwan dollars | ||
| Employees | Approx. 4,000 | ||
| Plant | Jungli Plant (Jungli City) | Kuanying Plant (Kuanying) | |
| Start of production | August 1986 | March 1995 | |
| Products | Corolla | Vios, Yaris, Wish, Innova (IMV*), Camry, Camry Hybrid, others |
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| Site area | 227 square kilometers | 336 square kilometers | |
| Production capacity | 100,000 units/year | 65,000 units/year | |
| *A project aimed at creating an optimal production and supply network on a global scale; the project consists of three pickup trucks, a minivan and an SUV. | |||
