Toyota Plans to Build First U.S. Crash-Test Center, Person Says

BLADDER_MASTER · Sep 1, 2006

Toyota Plans to Build First U.S. Crash-Test Center, Person Says

By Alan Ohnsman

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's largest automaker, will build its first U.S. center for crash-testing and safety research, enhancing its ability to design vehicles solely for the American market, according to a person familiar with the plan.

The company will announce the project Sept. 8 at a groundbreaking ceremony for a previously reported $150 million engineering facility near Ann Arbor, Michigan, said the person, who declined to be identified because the plan isn't yet public. The safety center will be built for an undetermined additional amount as a second phase of the engineering complex.

``Toyota for decades has been trying to create a more autonomous capability in the U.S.,'' said Jeffrey Liker, an engineering professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. U.S. crash-testing would allow Toyota to speed the development of new models because it wouldn't have to rely on prototypes built and tested in Japan, he said.

Toyota is following rival Honda Motor Co. in adding crash tests to its U.S. manufacturing, engineering and research and development operations. Honda opened a $30 million crash-test center in Ohio in 2003. Honda and DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler are the only foreign-owned automakers with crash test facilities in the U.S.

Near Technical Center

The engineering and safety facilities will be built on a 700-acre site in York Township, about 10 miles south of Toyota Technical Center, the company's North American research-and- development facility in Ann Arbor. Construction probably would be completed within two years.

Dan Sieger, a Toyota spokesman with the company's manufacturing and engineering unit in Erlanger, Kentucky, declined to comment,

Toyota is expanding to keep pace with U.S. sales that have grown an average of 7.7 percent annually this decade. The increase has pushed the Toyota City-based automaker past Germany's DaimlerChrysler AG as No. 3 in U.S. sales this year.

Carmakers run crash tests for new vehicles to ensure they meet U.S. standards for stability and front- and side-impacts. General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker, smashes as many as 42 vehicles and conducts 120 different crash tests for a new model, spokesman Alan Adler said.

Selling Safety

The addition of in-house safety testing by Toyota in the U.S. ``shows how much effort automakers are going to to make vehicle safety a top priority and a selling point,'' said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Virginia, which rates autos based on crash- worthiness.

Creation of a crash center also indicated more of the company's assembly-line tooling is being sourced locally, Liker said. `If they are now able to get the tooling needed to produce the prototypes that are going to be crashed from within the U.S., that would be a significant shift.''

Toyota's plan ``is big in terms of time-savings and flexibility,'' said analyst Jim Hossack of industry consultant AutoPacific Inc. in Tustin, California. It also `` alters the center of knowledge, shifting first-hand information from Japan to the U.S.,'' said Hossack, a former engineer with Ford and Mazda Motor Corp.

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm will attend next week's groundbreaking, Liz Boyd, Granholm's spokeswoman said.

U.S. shares of Toyota rose 27 cents to $107.82 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 12:35 p.m.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ak8LVKq0xoYo&refer=home

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