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LONG BEACH - TABC Inc. has said it will begin assembly of four-cylinder engines for the Tacoma pick-up truck at its Long Beach facility.

The plant - Toyota's longest operating manufacturing facility in the US - will assemble approximately 68,000 four-cylinder engines annually for the Tacoma, beginning in 2005. The expansion represents an approximate $7 million additional investment by Toyota in TABC. 

In June 2002, Toyota announced that Japan-based Hino Motors Ltd. would establish its first US manufacturing operation at TABC, which began operations in 1974. Beginning in 2004, TABC and Hino will assemble medium-size commercial panel trucks to be sold in North America. Annual production the first year will be 4,000 units.

Hino Motors is an affiliated company of Toyota Motor Corporation. The company produces a range of commercial vehicles and supplies trucks and buses to over one hundred countries throughout the world.

TABC currently produces truck beds and power steering columns, exporting catalytic converters and substrates for Toyota vehicles to Japan and Canada, as well as stamped parts to both Canada and Venezuela. The 431,000 square-foot TABC plant in Long Beach employs nearly 600 people and covers approximately 30 acres. 

Toyota will have capacity to build 1.65 million cars and trucks a year and 1.16 million engines in North America by 2006. The company currently employs some 34,000 people throughout North America.

The company's direct investment is nearly $14 billion with annual parts, materials, goods and services purchased from North American suppliers totaling nearly $20 billion last year.

Toyota's North American-produced vehicles include the Avalon, Camry, Corolla, Matrix, Sienna, Solara, Sequoia, Tacoma and Tundra, and Voltz.

Beginning in the fall of 2003, the Lexus RX 330 will be produced at the automaker's plant in Ontario, Canada.

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