Toyoda Gosei Co Ltd has started producing automotive airbag parts at its newly-established plant in Mexico, the Monterrey Plant of Tapex Mexicana in Matamoros.
The bags are manufactured mainly in Mexico and Vietnam for cost competitiveness, but the focus is on increasing sales to Japanese automakers.
Toyoda Gosei, a manufacturer of rubber and plastic automotive components, specified airbags, and other automotive safety system products as key future business growth areas in its medium-term 2025 business plan.
The new plant is Toyoda Gosei's sixth in Mexico, which would increase its annual bag production capacity by around 8 million units.
Toyoda Gosei Group plans to increase airbag production by about 1.6 times to approximately 100 million units from 2018 to 2023.