After 54 years of production in Australia, Toyota ended manufacturing on the continent today. More than 3,000 people, including former and current employees, officials, suppliers, and dealers, attended the closure event held at the Altona plant.
"Thanks to everyone's long-standing efforts, Toyota became the top automobile manufacturer in Australia, and the vehicles produced here became a byword for quality and reliability not only in Australia but also in the world as the vehicles were exported to other regions like the Middle East," Toyota Australia president Dave Buttner declared.
Starting from 2018, Toyota will lead all its sales and marketing operations in Australia from its Melbourne headquarters, as it transitions to a national sales and distribution company. The Altona plant will be reconstructed as a training and product development facility.
At this point, it's not officially clear what part of the employees from the factory will remain at work in Toyota, but the Japanese manufacturer says it has carried out re-employment assistance by providing workers with individual career consultations, job information, job fairs, and job skills training in the last three years.
In the last six decades, Toyota has produced a total of 3,541,115 vehicles at the Altona plant. The last models to roll off the assembly lines are the Camry and Aurion with the former being the most popular Toyota on the continent with more than 2.15 million sales.
"I sincerely express my gratitude for the efforts of the employees, customers, suppliers, dealers, government officials, and local communities that have supported production activities in Australia," Akio Toyoda, Toyota president, said in a video message. "Although the manufacturing business will end today, we will continue to make further efforts to be an automobile manufacturer that will be loved by everyone here in Australia and be supported even more than before."
