With the push of a plow by a 2015 Tundra TRD Pro, Toyota officially broke ground recently on the expansion of the Toyota Technical Center (TTC) in Michigan. The ceremony at Toyota's campus in York Township marks the first visible step toward its growing investment and employment in the state while strengthening its North American research and development operations.

"The expansion of this campus is a key element of Toyota's ongoing unification of our North American operations, which includes a new headquarters in Plano, Texas," said Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz in remarks during the ceremony.

"Investments here in Michigan will intensify Toyota's engineering, product development and procurement capabilities. The impact of this will be felt by our customers through improved quality, adoption of new technologies and greater value of the vehicles we produce."

Toyota is investing $126 million in the project, which includes construction of two new buildings in York Township. The landscape will add a new prototype facility for vehicle development and a Supplier Center. The Supplier Center will allow Toyota to forge even stronger alliances with its supplier partners.

This new facility will enable day-to-day collaboration between the purchasing group, engineering design team and supplier partners to better satisfy the needs of Toyota customers today and into the future.

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