Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, the joint venture plant in Huntsville, Alabama, built its one-millionth vehicle on October 28, 2026. That was five years after the first Corolla Cross came off the line in September 2021. The plant now employs more than 4,500 people and builds two crossovers, the Mazda CX-50 and the Toyota Corolla Cross.
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The milestone was marked with $120,000 in grants to four organizations that supported the plant’s training and workforce development since start-up. Autoblog’s coverage appeared on November 1, several days after the company’s own announcement. The money was directed to organizations that supported the venture’s workforce development from start-up to the present: a community college, a school district, a nonprofit and the state’s automotive manufacturers’ trade group.
The venture is owned jointly by Mazda Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor Corporation, and the two automakers announced it in 2018 as a way to share the cost of a new American factory. Each brand’s crossover is built on its own line inside the same complex, which lets the plant serve two customers with different products rather than building one shared vehicle.
From Apollo and Discovery lines to a million vehicles
The plant is a roughly $2.3 billion investment announced by the two automakers in 2018. According to a report on the celebration from Auto Connected Car, Corolla Cross production began in September 2021 on the Apollo line, and the CX-50 followed in January 2022 on the Discovery line. The plant was projected to reach 300,000 vehicles a year when fully ramped, with half allocated to the CX-50, and the CX-50 was the first new Mazda built on American soil since 2012.
The current lineup is the Corolla Cross, the Corolla Cross HEV, the CX-50 and the CX-50 Hybrid. Each model is offered with a gasoline or hybrid powertrain, and the company says both the CX-50 and the Corolla Cross featured in the millionth-vehicle celebration, though neither Autoblog nor the company says which one was the 1,000,000th unit.
By early in the plant’s life the venture had built more than 125,000 vehicles, over 90,000 of them Corolla Cross and over 35,000 CX-50. A million vehicles in about five years works out to an average near 195,000 a year, below the 300,000 annual capacity projected once the plant was fully ramped, which suggests the climb has been gradual rather than immediate. The pace is what a ramp-up looks like: the Corolla Cross began first, and the CX-50 added a second line four months later.
Headcount, grants and the people quoted
In the company’s press release, Erik Skaggs, senior vice president of Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, called reaching one million vehicles an extraordinary accomplishment reflecting the dedication, skill and teamwork of the plant’s team members. Chip Cherry, president and chief executive of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber, said the joint venture has become an invaluable part of the community and the regional economy. The grants went to Calhoun Community College, Kids to Love, Morgan County Schools and the Alabama Automotive Manufacturers Association.
The workforce of roughly 4,500 is larger than the roughly 4,000 positions the venture originally targeted, and the press release says the plant has created more than 4,500 jobs. Earlier giving included $750,000 to STEM programs at the groundbreaking and a first grant fund of $180,000 that went to 10 local nonprofits.
The announcement also fits a state story. Alabama Secretary of Commerce Greg Canfield said in 2022, when five automakers were building vehicles in Alabama, that the Mazda and Toyota collaboration would drive significant further growth in the state’s auto sector. The Huntsville plant’s workforce has since outgrown the roughly 4,000 positions first promised, and its giving to schools and training programs is part of how it holds local support.
A million vehicles split between Mazda and Toyota
Autoblog’s editorial reading, in its milestone story, is that the plant matters more to Mazda, which leans on the partnership to compete in North America. Sharing development and production costs lets the smaller automaker punch above its weight class, the outlet argues, and it ties the plant to Toyota’s broader American spending, including $912 million to keep building hybrids in the U.S. Autoblog’s separate piece on why Mazda’s future depends heavily on Toyota develops that theme.
The plant’s hybrid models matter to the next phase. The CX-50 Hybrid and Corolla Cross HEV now share the floor with their gasoline versions, giving each automaker a way to add electrified supply without a new factory. How quickly hybrids grow as a share of the next million vehicles is not addressed in the company’s announcement.
Another Alabama automaker is also expanding, as Hyundai commits nearly $500 million in Montgomery. Neither company has said what the next production target is for Huntsville, and the press release does not identify which vehicle was the millionth. The two projects show the state’s auto sector adding capacity at the same time, with Huntsville in the north and Montgomery in the center of the state.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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