UPDATED: 5/4/18 2:13 pm ET - adds higher investment
Toyota Motor Corp. plans to spend about C$1.4 billion ($1.1 billion) upgrading two of its three Ontario assembly plants in order to build the next generation of the RAV4 crossover, sources familiar with the plan tell Automotive News Canada.
The Canadian and Ontario governments will each provide up to C$110 million ($85.6 million) toward the projects.
The was first to report the investment plans.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Kathleen Wynne will make an announcement at 3:30 p.m. ET at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada North Plant in Cambridge, Ont., according to government news releases.
The investment and upgrades include production of a hybrid version of the RAV4 and spending on r&d in Ontario.
Toyota has been assembling the RAV4 in Woodstock, Ont., since 2008. The automaker has long planned to also build the popular vehicle at one of two plants in Cambridge once it moved production of the Corolla out of Canada. The Corolla will now be built at a new Toyota-Mazda Motor Corp. joint venture under construction in Alabama.
Toyota said in March at the New York Auto Show that it will build the hybrid version of its all-new 2019 RAV4 at a plant in Ontario. At the moment, all hybrid models are built in Japan. Only conventionally-powered RAV4s are built in Woodstock.
The RAV4 is Toyota’s best-selling vehicle in Canada, with sales of more than 50,000 nationwide last year. About one in four of those vehicles was a hybrid. In the United States in 2017, the RAV4 was the best-selling vehicle that is not a pickup truck, with sales of more than 400,000. The all-new fifth generation RAV4 will be delivered to dealer lots in Canada at the end of this year, probably in December. The hybrid will be available soon after, the company said in March.
Laurence Iliff of Automotive News and Mark Richardson of Automotive News Canada contributed to this report.
You can reach Greg Layson at glayson@autonews.com -- Follow Greg on Twitter: @GLaysonANC