Another car manufacturer is considering a plan to move production of their hottest selling vehicle to the US in response to tariffs levied by President Trump.
Toyota has a production facility for the RAV4 SUV in Kentucky, but it also makes the vehicle in Canada and Japan.
Because of the tariffs, they will likely ramp up production in the Kentucky plant so that the vehicles sold in the US are made in the US.
Here’s more from Reuters:
Toyota is considering producing the next version of its top-selling RAV4 SUV in the United States, three people familiar with the matter said, becoming the latest automaker to rethink supply chains to lessen the hit from U.S. tariffs on imported vehicles.
Toyota makes the current version of the popular SUV in Kentucky, Canada and Japan. It originally planned to export the new RAV4 to the United States from Canada and Japan but it is now also considering production in Kentucky as one option, given that demand for the car looks likely to outstrip supply, according to the people, all of whom declined to be identified because the information is not public.
Adding supply from the United States would also lessen the impact for the Japanese automaker from President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on imported cars and avoid potentially higher costs in cases of fluctuations in the volatile yen currency, two of the people said.
Toyota is set to unveil an overhauled 2026 RAV4 – its first redesign since the fifth-generation 2019 model – later this year and will then gradually introduce it in different markets around the world, one of the people said. It has yet to announce the exact timing of the U.S. roll-out.
Toyota has yet to finalise its production plans, the people said. Any production changes cannot be implemented quickly and require long-term planning, one of them said, due to the time-consuming and capital-intensive work involved in retooling manufacturing facilities and adjusting supply chains.
If the automaker goes ahead with the Kentucky plan, it would probably start production there in 2027, one of the people said. Regardless of the outcome with Kentucky, Toyota’s overall vehicle output in Canada is likely to be maintained, the people said.