Big changes are coming to Toyota’s->ke88 North American manufacturing arm. The automaker has announced it will be building an all-new manufacturing facility in Guanajuato, Mexico for its Corolla->ke1039 production. Once online in time for the 2020 model year, the new plant will carry the load currently handled by the assembly plant in Cambridge, Ontario.

Toyota plans to invest approximately a billion dollars to construct the new Guanajuato plant. Toyota says the facility will be producing Corollas by 2019 and employing some 2,000 team members to crank out nearly 200,000 vehicles annually.

Conversely, the Canadian plant will receive its first major overhaul since its construction in 1997. The plant, which will cease production of the Corolla, will be upgraded to produce a yet-unnamed mid-size vehicle – likely the Camry->ke246 or Avalon->ke350 – that Toyota says will be a higher-value vehicle.

This realignment pools together Toyota’s like vehicles to be assembled in their respective regions. The Canadian and more northern U.S. plants will handle the higher-value vehicles, while the southern U.S. and Mexican plant will handle compact vehicle->ke140 and truck->ke242 production. Among the Canadian-built vehicles are the RAV4->ke370 and Lexus RX350->ke1835 and 450h.->ke4881 Down south, the upcoming Guanajuato plant will accompany the Mississippi plant with Corolla production while the Tacoma->ke1042 and Tundra->ke485 will continue to be assembled in Texas and Mexico.

Continue reading for the full story.

Why it matters

These new moves appear to be in the name of streamlining logistics and decreasing costs. By clustering production of like vehicles together, Toyota is able to “better leverage its supply chain.” Not to mention, adding additional assembly plants – both in the form on an all-new facility and with the remodeled Canadian facility – Toyota will be able to produce more vehicles annually. It’s easy to see why Toyota continually ranks among the world’s largest automakers.

More importantly, Toyota is adding more jobs to the world’s economy. Mexico alone is getting 2,000 jobs, while plants around North America are continually adding employees. In recent years, the Kentucky plant added 750 new jobs; the Ontario plant added nearly 400 new jobs; the Indiana plant added 300; and the West Virginia plant added 80 jobs.

2016 Toyota Corolla

Read our full review here.