Toyota Australia has invested $40 million more dollars towards innovation and expertise to be explored in a new Product Centre opened at its Centre of Excellence (CoE) facility in Altona, Victoria.
The new Product Centre will bring all of Toyota’s local planning, design, engineering, and evaluation teams in the same facility.
As a part of the 22-hectare CoE, the new facility will house the teams who designed and developed models as the HiLux Rugged X and HiLux Rogue, creating a space for collaboration across departments.
“We’ve already seen what our planning and development teams are capable of, with vehicles like the HiLux Rugged X and HiLux Rogue proving to be popular here in Australia and creating accessories that are adopted in markets around the world,” Toyota Australia Vice President Product, Guest and Aftersales Operations Mike Rausa said.
“We wanted to retain and build on the capability developed during our long history of vehicle manufacturing, providing a highly collaborative environment that would allow Australian design and engineering expertise and know-how to be utilised within the broad Toyota family.
“The new Product Centre delivers just that, keeping jobs, skills and career paths grounded in Australia.”
Toyota Australia has expressed their commitment to the local developments, creating exciting new projects for both local and global markets.
“Having previously been based at multiple facilities around Melbourne, consolidating the product teams on one site in a state-of-the art facility, alongside other TMCA business functions, will foster a level of collaboration that hasn’t been possible before,” Toyota Australia Product Planning and Development General Manager, Rod Ferguson said.
“The new Toyota Product Centre ensures Toyota’s legacy of locally developed products will continue for decades to come,” he said.
The CoE also houses the Toyota Hydrogen Centre and hydrogen production, storage and re-fuelling facility which you can read more about here.
