October 28, 2026 - 1 Million Vehicles From Mazda Toyota Manufacturing

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for October 28, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry. 

Just over five years after the first Toyota Corolla Cross rolled off the assembly line in Huntsville, Alabama, Mazda Toyota Manufacturing today celebrated the production of 1 million vehicles as another Corolla Cross and a Mazda CX-50 rolled out simultaneously. In August 2017, Toyota and Mazda formalized their partnership, and the following January, they announced that they would build a joint assembly plant in Huntsville. The two automakers jointly invested $2.3 billion to build the plant that has a combined capacity of 300,000 vehicles per year. 

There are two assembly lines, one for each company, and since the plant is located not far from the Marshall Space Flight Center, the Toyota line is nicknamed Apollo, while the Mazda line has been dubbed Discovery. Initial production was hampered by the Covid pandemic and subsequent supply chain issues, including the chip shortage. Eventually, everything was sorted out, and each of the lines is on track to produce near their respective capacities. The Toyota line has produced nearly 115,000 Corolla Crosses through September of this year, while the Mazda line has produced over 97,000 CX-50s. 

The plant currently employs over 4,500 people, but when hiring began in 2020, MTM began collaborations with local school districts and Calhoun Community College to train incoming employees, provide continuing education and support STEAM education programs for children in middle and high schools. MTM has an employee dedicated to working with two local districts to provide student and teacher support, aid in curriculum development, and provide industry insights through the Leading Industry Growth by Helping Teachers (LIGHT) Program. 

The assembly lines are designed to be flexible enough to handle future new hybrid and electric vehicle production and already share Toyota hybrid powertrains for installation into the Mazda CX-50. 

Thanks for listening.