Toyota to build new Auris model at Derbyshire factory in vote of confidence in UK

Toyota boss Johan van Zyl, Business Secretary Greg Clark and car executive Marvin Cooke inspect the Burnaston factory where the new cars will be built, in a move which backs sustained investment in the British industry - Rod Kirkpatrick/F Stop Press
Toyota boss Johan van Zyl, Business Secretary Greg Clark and car executive Marvin Cooke inspect the Burnaston factory where the new cars will be built, in a move which backs sustained investment in the British industry - Rod Kirkpatrick/F Stop Press

Toyota will build the new model of its Auris car in the newly revamped factory in Burnaston in Derbyshire, in a major vote of confidence in the UK.

The new model will start rolling off production lines before the end of this year. The factory typically made around 140,000 of the previous Auris models per year.

It comes after the company invested more than £240m in new technology and systems to build the next generation of Toyota vehicles and make the plant more competitive.

The group’s president and chief executive, Johan van Zyl, said Toyota needs to keep access to the EU’s markets, which is vital for components in the cars and also as an export market.

“As a company, we are doing what we can to secure the competitiveness of our UK operations as a leading manufacturing centre for our European business,” he said on a visit to the factory.

“With around 85pc of our UK vehicle production exported to European markets, continued free and frictionless trade between the UK and Europe will be vital for future success.”

Auris 
Almost 140,000 Auris cars have been built at the factory on average over each of the past five years

He was speaking ahead of a report from the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee of MPs which concluded that it is important for the car industry that Brexit brings as few changes as possible.

Avoiding tariffs is imperative, the MPs said.

“It is difficult to see how it would make economic sense for multinational volume manufacturers – the bulk of the UK automotive sector – to base production in the UK in a no deal or World Trade Organisation tariff scenario,” the MPs said.

“The shift of manufacturing to countries within the customs union and single market would be inevitable; the cost in UK jobs could be in the hundreds of thousands, and inward investment in the hundreds of millions.”

The UK is currently within the EU’s tariff walls which impose a 10pc tax on imports – so leaving this could place British factories at a disadvantage when selling into the EU, though trade deals could stop this from happening, and also open up the UK to more global trade.

Delays at the border for inspections would “make the UK automotive sector less efficient and act as a disincentive to international companies looking for a base to manufacture cars for the European market”.

British regulations should continue to match those in the EU as “the UK market is not big enough to warrant the additional costs to manufacturers of meeting another set of standards”, said the Committee which is chaired by Labour MP Rachel Reeves.

Instead the UK should continue to contribute to the pattern of convergence in regulations globally, which gives manufacturers more scale and allows them to become more efficient.