Toyota to close Australian design studio

Toyota designers at its Technical Center Asia Pacific Australia (TTCAP-AU) are to lose their jobs as part of Toyota's decision to scale back the facility's activities as well as halting all manufacturing within the country by 2017.

The TTCAP-AU, which carries out all its Australian design and evaluation operations, employs 150 designers and modelers and it's possible that its activities with the Camry, Camry Hybrid and Aurion models could be scrapped, raising doubts over its future.

Around 2,500 employees at Toyota's Altona manufacturing plant are expected to lose their jobs, although the effects are likely to be wider ranging.

President Akio Toyoda said: "We believed that we should continue producing vehicles in Australia, and Toyota and its workforce here made every effort. However, various negative factors such as an extremely competitive market and a strong Australian dollar, together with forecasts of a reduction in the total scale of vehicle production in Australia, have forced us to make this painful decision."

Toyota is the final carmaker to confirm a withdrawal from Australia following Ford and GM's announcement they would stop building cars by 2017 at the latest.

The carmaker said it was reviewing its position following GM's announcement that a "perfect storm of negative influences" was behind its decision to exit Australia including "the sustained strength of the Australian dollar, high cost of production, small domestic market and arguably the most competitive and fragmented auto market in the world".

Vehicle production in Australia has nearly halved in the last decade from more than 400,000 in 2004 to around 200,000 in 2012, and of the total number of cars sold last year, domestically produced vehicles accounted for a record low of barely 10 percent. The Japanese carmaker was the top-selling brand, holding nearly one-fifth of the market.

By Rufus Thompson