Toyota Hilux - Made In Thailand For Japan

With production for certain models in Japan coming to a halt, what a lot of Japanese manufacturers are having to do is import them from their various other production sites the world over. The latest in this trend is the Toyota Hilux Revo, also known as the plain old Toyota Hilux over here.

This would be the first time since Toyota phased out local Hilux production within Japan and moved it over to Thailand in 2002. The demand for pickup trucks in Japan is picking up (no pun intended) as buyers are finding value in larger vehicles with higher cargo capacities. 

Since August, Toyota has been importing the Hilux from Thailand and selling it in Japan for a retail price of around 3 million yen (RM 110,952), as Bangkok Post reports. The expected export rate for the Japanese market is roughly 300 units a month.

It also bears to remember that Japan is just 1 of 122 countries worldwide that take their Hiluxes from Thailand. Through 2016, Toyota produced 513,603 pickup trucks across 13 plants globally, and Thailand accounted for 64% of this figure. 

Last week also marked a milestone for Toyota, as they had just crossed the 3 million unit threshold for exports from their Thai operations- although generally there has been a little bit of a slump for pickup truck exports given the economic instability of the Middle East (one of Toyota's larger pickup truck markets).

As for Toyota's Thailand operations, they expect to sell a healthy 265,000 units this year- an 8% increase over last year. In addition to this, sales of pickups within Oceania support the continuous production of pickups- more than enough to offset the drop in Middle East sales.