Mazda to make a new Toyota for North America
The Mazda Motor Corporation has a plan to build a new Toyota subcompact car, meant for the North American market, at their Mexico plant.
This new model won’t actually be that new, it will be a rebadged Mazda2 which is planned to go on sale in 2015. The Japanese carmaker is optimistic about its sales, expecting to sell fifty thousand copies a year.
They will have a bit of an uphill fight on their hands because the Mazda2 will have to compete with the Ford Fiesta, Chevrolet Sonic, Honda Fit, Nissan Versa as well as the Toyota’s Yaris and Scion xD; that’s a lot of competition in the field.
During the first ten months of this year, Toyota sold a bit over twenty-six thousand Yaris copies – which is an increase of seventeen percent when compared to the same period of 2011, and a bit over nine thousand copies of the Scion xD – coincidentally, also seventeen percent more than last year. Those are some decent numbers, however the Yaris and the xD are imported from Japan, and the current dollar-yen exchange rates means that Toyota is only making a minimal profit or even losing money on these sales in the United States.
However, the new model is planned to be an addition to the lineup, and since Toyota also plans to sell the car in Canada and Mexico, it makes a lot of sense to actually build it in North America. The plant in Salamanca, Mexico, is still under construction, but it is scheduled to open in 2014 with a projected capacity of 140,000 units per year; the plant is designed to build the Mazda2 and Mazda3.
The redesigned Mazda2 model is scheduled to arrive in 2014 and coincide with the plant’s opening.
