Suzuki Motor Corporation has decided to relocate the motorcycle assembly of the Toyokawa Plant (Aichi prefecture) to the Miyakoda district located in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka.
The Hamamatsu facility is an integrated plant of motorcycle engines and the assembly, engineering, development, and testing facilities of motorcycles and the next-generation eco-friendly vehicles
The relocation comes as a part of the consolidation of the motorcycle business, which is currently dispersed, in the same district due to the countermeasure to the earthquake and the tsunami, and the decrease in the domestic motorcycle production volume.
Currently, Suzuki’s motorcycle business is dispersed in three different locations: the motorcycle technical centre (located in the Ryuyo district in Iwata, Shizuoka) for the engineering and the development; the Takatsuka Plant (located in Minami-ku, Hamamatsu) for the production of the engines; and the Toyokawa Plant (located in Toyokawa) for the assembly of the motorcycles.
In the midst of the decrease in the domestic motorcycle production volume due to the increase in local production in the overseas markets for local consumption, as well as for the countermeasure to the earthquake and the tsunami, Suzuki will consolidate the motorcycle assembly of the Toyokawa Plant into the Hamamatsu Plant, located in the Miyakoda district, to consistently operate from engineering, development, and testing, to production of the engines and the powertrain, and the assembly.
The entire consolidation exercise will be conducted eventually over the period of five years, with the end of the production at the Toyokawa Plant scheduled in July 2018. The Toyokawa Plant started its production as a motorcycle plant in October 1971. Suzuki’s domestic motorcycle production volume marked its highest in FY1981 with approximately 1.6 million units, and the Toyokawa Plant was taking a part of that role. However, the production volume of the last fiscal year was 180,000 units.
Photograph: Suzuki GSX-R1000 ABS.