On May 27, 2020, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC) built its nine-millionth vehicle in Canada – a Lexus RX 450h hybrid luxury SUV – at its Cambridge South plant, in Cambridge, Ontario.
In doing so, TMMC celebrated its more than 30-year history as a key player in Ontario's automotive industry. TMMC, which began operations in Cambridge in 1988, now operates two production lines in that location and a third line in Woodstock, employing more than 8,500 people in the three facilities combined.
TMMC was the first plant outside of Japan to build a Lexus vehicle and currently manufactures the Toyota RAV4 and RAV4 Hybrid, Lexus RX 350 and RX 450 Hybrid models among these three plants. In addition to adding two J.D. Power plant awards in 2019, to a long list of similar awards, the Lexus RX was also honoured with the J.D. Power Award for the top vehicle in its segment category.
"We're proud to reach this (nine-millionth vehicle) milestone and proud of our growth," said Frank Voss, President of TMMC." In 1988 – the year we opened our first plant in Cambridge – our team members built 153 Toyota Corollas – and it took 10 years to produce our first million vehicles. We built the most recent million in just two years and we're building almost 500,000 Toyota and Lexus vehicles every year, making us the highest producing Toyota and Lexus plant in North America, and the second-largest in the world."
"Our team is responsible for building some of the most popular Toyota and Lexus models for the entire North American market," Voss noted. "And there's more to come. As we set our sights on the 10-million mark, we're also preparing for exciting changes – including the top-selling Lexus NX and Lexus NX Hybrid, which we'll start to build in Cambridge in early 2022."