Toyota Motor Europe (TME) recently started production of the all-new Toyota C-HR (earlier post), including its first European battery assembly, at its plant in Sakarya, Turkey. With a new investment of €308 million injected into its manufacturing facilities, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey (TMMT) is Toyota’s first European plant to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Since its launch, the Toyota C-HR has maintained a strong sales performance across its lifecycle with cumulative sales of more than 800,000 vehicles. During this period, Toyota C-HR attracted many new customers helping to move the Toyota brand’s European market share from 4% to 7%.

The all-new Toyota C-HR comes with four electrified powertrains: 1.8 and 2.0-liter Hybrid Electric (HEV) models, 2.0-liter HEV model with intelligent all-wheel drive (AWD-i) and 2.0-liter Plug-in Hybrid Electric (PHEV) model.

Toyota has invested €308 million to modernize TMMT's production lines in view of further electrification with total investment in the Sakarya plant now reaching €2.5 billion.

The new investment further diversifies TMMT’s production. In addition to the Corolla Sedan and the all-new Toyota C-HR PHEV, Toyota will assemble plug-in batteries in Europe for the first time. The new battery line has the capacity to assemble 75,000 battery units annually.