Toyota Ends Czech Republic Joint Venture With PSA

Toyota assumes full control of a car plant it had been running as a joint venture with the PSA Group as it plans to increase output of its hybrid Yaris for Europe.

The move ends the JV between the automakers to operate the plant at Kolin in the Czech Republic founded in 2002. Its new name, Toyota Motor Mfg. Czech Republic, was unveiled Jan. 1, together with a new company logo.

Consistent with the abbreviation example of other European Toyota plants, the business will be known as TMMCZ.

The Kolin plant has built the Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 108 and Citroën C1 A-segment city cars since 2005, and it will continue production of the vehicles for both Toyota and PSA.

Toyota invested more than 4 billion Czech crowns ($185 million) to increase capacity and modernize the site. This investment has enabled the introduction of Toyota New Global Architecture manufacturing, allowing the plant to begin producing the new hybrid Yaris in second-half 2021.

Koreatsu Aoki, plant president, says: “As from today, our plant is part of the Toyota group, which now has eight fully owned manufacturing centers across Europe. Increased demand for our cars and preparation for the start of production of a new model mean that our operations will move to three shifts from 28 February.

“The factory, one of the biggest exporters in the Czech Republic, uses an extensive automotive supply chain within the country.”