Flashback to 2001 when Toyota announced it had selected a 200-acre site in north Huntsville for its newest engine plant in North America.

By 2003, it was to be Toyota’s first plant outside of Japan to manufacture V8 engines with an annual production capacity of 120,000 units. It announced a $220 million investment and bringing 350 jobs to Alabama.

Twenty years later, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama is one of the largest Toyota engine plants in the world producing. The facility produces one-third of all Toyota engines in North America, and is a critical part of Toyota’s supply chain operations. The plant is also the only Toyota plant that produces all four engine types for the automaker.

Production has increased to approximately 3,000 engines per day for the RAV4, Corolla, Tacoma, Sequoia, Highlander, Sienna and Tundra. And by the end of this year, it will have the capacity to produce 900,000 engines per year.

“Toyota’s continued investment in Toyota Alabama shows confidence in our ability to produce quality engines for North American operations,” said Jason Puckett, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Alabama. “Plants are selected for engine production based on safety, quality, productivity, cost competitiveness and geographic proximity to the vehicle plant.”

Toyota Alabama supplies engines for Toyota plants across North America.

Toyota Alabama will produce the 69-horsepower, 2.0-liter Dynamic Force Engine for the new 2022 Corolla Crossover for Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, enabling the all-new model to achieve high-quality performance.

Known for its “just in time” production, every Toyota engine produced in Huntsville goes directly into a new Toyota vehicle.

The plant has been through five building expansions. The latest in 2019 was a $288 million investment for 4-cylinder and V6 engine lines that expanded production capacity by about 35 percent and added 450 jobs totaling more than $1.2 billion in operations.

“By building vehicles and engines where we sell, we support local suppliers and economies, increase our overall investment, protect ourselves from currency fluctuations and, most importantly, build ever-better vehicles for our customers,” Puckett said.

Toyota Alabama supplies engines for Toyota assembly plants across North America, including assembly plants in Mississippi, Texas, Indiana, Canada, and Mexico.

Puckett said the Huntsville plant is the first to be a model sustainable plant, reflecting their commitment to providing environmentally sound solutions.

“We are a zero-landfill plant and have won the Toyota North America awards for outstanding energy and water management for 13 consecutive years,” he said. “We are also the recipient of the EPA Energy Star Challenge and recently added a 3.3-acre solar array, which will reduce CO2 emissions at the plant by 1,732 metric tons annually.”

Since the plant’s opening in 2003, employment has grown from 300 to more than 1,400 employees. If interested in joining the Toyota team, visit and apply at www.toyotamanufacturingjobs.com/al-production.