Toyota commences third shift at its India plant

Toyota has announced that it has commenced a third shift at its Bidadi plant. The Japanese carmaker manufactures its MPVs and SUVs at Bidadi, its only facility in India, and we had previously reported that the manufacturer had planned to increase production.

1. Toyota India production to go up by around 30 percent
2. Cumulative yearly production capacity to be around 4 lakh units
3. Innova Hycross, Grand Vitara waiting periods to reduce

Third shift to help cater massive order backlog

Toyota started its India operations back in 1999 at Bidadi, Karnataka, and plant number one currently manufactures the popular Innova Hycross, the Innova Crysta and the Fortuner SUV. This plant has a capacity of up to one lakh units a year. Toyota’s second India plant, also at Bidadi, went online in December 2010, and manufactures the Camry hybrid, the Hilux and Urban Cruiser Hyryder (along with the Maruti Grand Vitara). This plant has an annual production capacity of 2.10 lakh units.

Adding a third shift will see Toyota increase the production capacity of its Innova, Fortuner and Hycross from 380 units per day to 510 units, and augment its cumulative capacity in India to around 4,00,000 units a year. According to sources, this will also help Toyota reduce its long order backlog that stands at over 1.2 lakh units. A major chunk of these orders, around 70,000 units, are for the Innova Hycross and the Crysta. The expansion in capacity will also help cater to the strong order book of Maruti Suzuki’s Grand Vitara, which is being produced at Toyota's plant along with the Toyota Hyryder. 

With skyrocketing order backlog, Toyota was compelled to halt bookings for the top variants of the Innova Hycross a while back. The Innova Crysta production, too, was halted late last year and the model was reintroduced as diesel-only in February 2023. By July this year, Toyota will also supply the Innova Hycross to Maruti as a Maruti-badged product that will be retailed via Nexa outlets which will require further capacity, so the expansion comes just right in time. 

Two new model launches for Toyota this year

Apart from selling the Glanza in its showrooms, which is supplied by Maruti, Toyota will also introduce its own version of the Maruti Fronx, and is also expected to introduce a badge-engineered Ertiga.