Toyota Motor Corp has decided to start making the Lexus luxury brand medium-sized sedan ES in the United States as early as in 2015, news reports said on Thursday.
It will be the first time that Japan’s largest carmaker has manufactured a Lexus brand car in the United States. The decision will be formally announced by Toyota president Akio Toyoda in New York on Friday, the Kyodo News agency reported, citing unnamed sources close to the matter.
Toyota is currently producing the model at its plant in Fukuoka, southern Japan, and it is looking to shift the operation entirely or partly to Kentucky, Kyodo said.
The ES is the best-selling Lexus sedan in the US. It is not sold in Japan.
Toyota plans to expand its Kentucky factory with an investment of about 500 million dollars and hire more than 500 new workers, Kyodo said.
The carmaker also plans to manufacture 50,000 Lexus ES sedans annually at the Kentucky plant, the report said.