Toyota May Shift Korea-Bound Camry Production To U.S.

TOKYO, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp is considering shifting production of South Korea-bound Camry autos to the United States from Japan to help lower export costs of the sedan, the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday.

A historically strong yen, which is pressuring Japan's export-oriented manufacturers, and a free trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea have led the automaker to mull the move to reduce costs, the Nikkei said.

Toyota is considering producing its new Camry model, which is scheduled to be launched in South Korea in 2012, at its Kentucky factory, the newspaper said.

A Toyota spokesman declined to comment on the report.

Despite the soaring yen, which erodes Japanese exporters' foreign earnings and makes their goods more expensive overseas, Toyota has pledged to keep a minimum level of production at home to protect Japanese manufacturing.

On Monday, the yen was trading around 76.40 to the dollar, not far from its record high of 75.94 hit last month.

Toyota sold a little over 4,200 Camrys last year in South Korea, making it one of the top-selling foreign cars in the country, a stronghold of Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors .

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[TheMadHedgeFundTrader]

11:12 PM on 10/11/2011

Today Toyota, the world’s largest car maker, has been slammed by the perfect storm that has taken its shares down a gut churning 60% from its 2008 peak. They took eight years to find a defect in an American made accelerator component that caused thousands of accidents, and dozens of deaths, forcing a worldwide recall of 10 million vehicles.

To me, this all adds up to a great screaming “BUY.” You can start with the recall, the largest in history, covering eight models, which promises to be speedy, lavish and generous. It prompted a production shut down, an unprecedented measure in auto history. The company is going all out to reinforce customer loyalty. Toyota still makes great cars.
Since the company is Japan’s largest exporter, it would benefit greatly from any weakness in the yen, which I consider as the world’s most overpriced currency. Think of the stock as a long dated yen put. Look at the charts for Ford, US cars sales, and the palladium used for catalytic converters, and it is obvious that the world is seeing a surge in global car sales.

Let the ruckus over the recall burn out, and add Toyota to your “buy on dips” list. Keep in mind that this is not a day trade, but something to bury in your portfolio and then lose behind the radiator. It will also not be immune from the calamities that strike the stock market.

[GEM-592]

04:09 PM on 09/26/2011

As long as you don't try to pull any of that union stuff USA!

[hypnotoad72]

01:34 PM on 09/27/2011

How dare workers have living wages and time to be with families instead of devoting their entire lives to make someone else rich? 

Let corporations prove unions are no longer necessary.    ;)

[cwaged1002]

03:20 PM on 09/26/2011

USA labor just keeps getting cheaper. This is what Corp America and the Republicans mean when they tell American labor they must compete in the Global Economy.

[Neal113048]

09:16 PM on 09/26/2011

No, US labor is getting more productive. That's why we are able to manufacture twice the amount we did in 1970 with far fewer people.

[rotorhead1871]

02:10 AM on 09/27/2011

its robots pal.....not people..being productive..

[hypnotoad72]

01:35 PM on 09/27/2011

Fanned and faved

[OldTulsan]

02:47 PM on 09/26/2011

Large corporations like auto companies have passed being multinationals. They're now super-nationals.

Their only loyalty is to their bottom line.

Japanese car companies listened to Dr. Deming, and used his statistical process control on their assembly lines.

"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." -- Thomas Jefferson

[rotorhead1871]

02:11 AM on 09/27/2011

business is the religion of the capitalist......and it knows NO bounds...

[hypnotoad72]

01:35 PM on 09/27/2011

Fanned and faved

[roxette]

01:06 PM on 09/26/2011

Hope they will do more than considering. It will mean good jobs for Kentucky, if only GE would consider to do the same.

[hypnotoad72]

01:37 PM on 09/27/2011

Agreed.  The union-paying jobs, as indicated in a blog I'm referencing, are not much higher in pay than the non-union ones.

http://anti-union.blogspot.com/2008/11/greedy-american-union-auto-workers-and.html

Let's start with the fact that it's not $70 per hour in wages. According to Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automative Research--who was my primary source for the figures you are about to read--average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. That works out to a little less than $60,000 a year in gross income--hardly outrageous, particularly when you consider the physical demands of automobile assembly work and the skills most workers must acquire over the course of their careers.

More important, and contrary to what you may have heard, the wages aren't that much bigger than what Honda, Toyota, and other foreign manufacturers pay employees in their U.S. factories. While we can't be sure precisely how much those workers make, because the companies don't make the information public, the best estimates suggests the corresponding 2007 figure for these "transplants"--as the foreign-owned factories are known--was somewhere between $20 and $26 per hour, and most likely around $24 or $25. That would put average worker's annual salary at $52,000 a year.

[dukeitout]

11:48 AM on 09/26/2011

Good. We need all the jobs we can get, regardless of whether they are union or not.

[RecreationalPilot]

02:16 PM on 09/26/2011

Yep. Let's get those $16/hour Right-to-work jobs, if you're lucky it's $16 an hour.

[Neal113048]

09:16 PM on 09/26/2011

Far better than unemployment.

[muck-raker]

07:18 AM on 09/27/2011

BMW in S. Carolina is $12.50 hr ( they got a deal in the factory with no taxes for years)

[Janine547]

11:26 AM on 09/26/2011

The UAW is foaming at the mouth from this news. I hope Toyota is smart enough to steer clear of the midwest states that the UAW control. Take the facilities to the southern region of the country where unions are less likely to corrupt.

[RedneckDem]

11:33 AM on 09/26/2011

In other words...

Trailer park tramp willing to work for peanuts.

[Janine547]

11:41 AM on 09/26/2011

No ! Seeing what the UAW is doing with Chrysler and their recent request was enough. It would seem that their demands of a company who is already losing money is ludacris. What's even funnier is I live in the burbs of Detroit, 20 minutes from downtown. So, Billy "Bob" Jack your views of me mean nothing.

[Ed Baker]

12:59 PM on 09/26/2011

Toyota workers are compensated similar to UAW workers, they just make a better product. Some of that is the engineering, some of that is pride in workmanship....

[cyoohoos]

11:40 AM on 09/26/2011

Your post makes it very clear that you didn't even bother to read the article.

[Janine547]

11:43 AM on 09/26/2011

Oh, good. Kentucky is a fine choice. Right to work state without the union corruption.
Anything else ?

[RecreationalPilot]

09:00 AM on 09/26/2011

4,200 cars. Wow!

The earthquake, tsunami, power situation and supply issues in japan had nothing to do with it.

[Barbarian At The Gate]

10:28 AM on 09/26/2011

That number makes it a top selling foreign car in South Korea. The South Koreans must buy their own domestic cars.

[offmyrocker]

08:21 AM on 09/26/2011

PLease do toyota, show the american car companies how its done

[RecreationalPilot]

08:59 AM on 09/26/2011

The US companies have been doing that for years, hence the decline in US production. China and other markets have come online and instead of exporting our cars and other goods over there, the US companies set up shop in those foreign countries and pay little to no US taxes on the money they bring back to the US.

As salaries and benefits lower in the US, especially in the right to work states, labor is actually becoming cheaper here in the US than in Japan, in a few years, we'll be cheaper than Korea. That is why the top 400 people make almost 50% of US's income last year. The rest of us are fighting for the scraps and are being put in the position to turn on each other. It's pretty bad that US salaries are dropping, benefits are dropping while local, state and cost of living increases.

[TMS3100]

11:26 AM on 09/26/2011

"That is why the top 400 people make almost 50% of US's income last year."

===================
Utter BS.

[Ed Baker]

01:00 PM on 09/26/2011

Labor has been cheaper in the US vs Japan for decades.

[OldTulsan]

09:03 AM on 09/26/2011

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/autos/1006/gallery.american_made/index.html
10 'most American' cars - 1. Toyota Camry (1) - CNNMoney.com

"Just because a car has a Detroit brand name doesn't mean it's all-American.

To to figure out which cars really are the "most American," analysts at the automotive Web site Cars.com looked at where the vehicles are manufactured and how many domestic-made parts they use. The rankings also take U.S. sales into consideration, since top-selling models should boost American employment.

For the second year in a row, the Toyota Camry ranked as the most American car sold in the U.S. Of the top ten most American cars, half were from Toyota and Honda.

(Excludes Camry Hybrid.)"

[billfrombuckhead]

11:06 AM on 09/26/2011

NHTSA rates the Dodge Avenger with having the highest domestic content.

[Ed Baker]

01:03 PM on 09/26/2011

Five of the ten are from Japanese firms.....