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The Head Of Toyota-North America Lays Out His Vision For Toyota Texas

Ryan E. Poppe
Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz

At a luncheon in Austin on Thursday, the head of Toyota-North America shared some of the company’s future plans, some of which include more jobs at the company’s San Antonio plant, which at this point cannot keep up with customer demand for light trucks.

 

In April of 2014, Toyota-North America CEO Jim Lentz announced the company was moving its headquarters from California to the Dallas suburb of Plano. Since then the company has begun construction on its two-million square foot facility in North Texas that seeks to consolidate every element of the company except for manufacturing.  

 

Lentz says along with the move, Toyota is also increasing its workforce at its San Antonio plant. During his talk in front of business leaders and state lawmakers, Lentz said 68% of all the automobiles sold in the U.S. last month were trucks.

 

“Pickup trucks are red hot, and we are going to add about 250 jobs, about $26-million in investments and hopefully build another 20 or 30 thousand more trucks in Texas,” Lentz explained.

 

And Lentz said even with those added assembly jobs, Toyota will still be missing out on business.

 

“Day supply on pickup trucks are probably a 12 to 14 day supply, which is extremely short, so today we are missing business,” Lentz said.

 

Lentz said the company will begin to increase its production of trucks at its San Antonio plant starting this spring. The company will move into its new headquarters in April of 2017.