Part makers miss hybrid

IN SPITE of the Victorian and federal governments putting up more than $60 million to assist Toyota’s introduction of the Camry Hybrid in 2010, Australian parts makers will not get a crack at making components for the hybrid technology in the car until hybrid transmissions are being purchased in large numbers around the world.

The executive director of sales and marketing of Toyota Australia, David Buttner, told a Toyota Environment and Technology Conference at Altona on Monday that 100 per cent of the major driveline components for the new car would be brought in from Japan.

Mr Buttner said the local Camry Hybrid was unusual in that it would be introduced into Altona in the middle of the model cycle because of a “strong desire” to secure hybrid manufacturing for Australia and that all current hybrid components for all plants worldwide were made in Japan. This excluded Australian parts makers because they are not on the current program.

“But as we progress through the decade starting 2010, as we ramp up from there to where Toyota has a target of one in 10 vehicles will be hybrid, you can start to then look at alternate production outside of Japan,” he said. “So for the current generation it will not be possible for the unique hybrid components to be sourced locally.

“Any sourcing decision down the track, while we have a very strong aspiration to source the components in the countries where we built the cars, will always depend on the strength and the capacity of the local supplier community and their ability to embrace the technology.

“So our discussions will be ongoing over the balance of the next two years to look at where the future sourcing of components will be. And that will always be done with a positive mind to support local suppliers.”

Left: executive director of sales and marketing of Toyota Australia, David Buttner.

Asked later by GoAuto if Australian suppliers were capable of making hybrid components, Mr Buttner said: “There are some very good local suppliers with strong international links either back to the parent or though licensing agreements and technology sharing.” But he warned that gearing up and tooling up to make components specifically for a hybrid with a volume of just 10,000 units a year “would hardly be an economic model”.

“So that is not going to happen based on those numbers. So what we have to do is grow that volume and grow the numbers of offerings of hybrids within the Toyota range.” Mr Buttner said Toyota was serious in its vision of having a hybrid in every model series by 2020 – “but it is still a long way away”.

“We are not talking to anyone specifically. This announcement was only made in July. But we will have genuine discussions here (in Australia),” he said. “But at the moment there is a lot of concern about the health of local suppliers based on the drop in local production with some of our competitors going on four-day weeks and closing down.

“The cash flow of some of our suppliers is going to be very constrained. So we are watching closely the health of suppliers because it is important to have a healthy and viable supply industry that is achieving good volumes because you need the greater volumes to spread your fixed costs,” he said.

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