Toyota to Shift Tacoma Production to Texas in $3.6 B San Antonio Expansion

This mirrors the 1980-s wave of Japanese “transplant” factories—Honda’s Marysville, Ohio plant (opened 1982) and Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant (1988)—that arose after the 1981 U.S.–Japan voluntary export restraints. Then, as now, trade friction pushed foreign automakers to localize production. The move also fits a broader 21st-century pattern of de-globalization and ‘friend-shoring,’ as firms hedge against tariff volatility, pandemic-era supply shocks, and politicized industrial policy. Over a century, the notable shift is the geographic dispersion of auto manufacturing from Detroit’s early-1900s monopoly to a Sun Belt corridor stretching from South Carolina to Texas. Whether the San Antonio plant ultimately thrives will depend less on today’s tariffs than on Toyota’s ability to electrify its truck line and navigate labor-automation tension—a dynamic likely to define vehicle production well past 2100.