The Corolla Cross Factory Built Its Millionth Vehicle in Five Years

The Alabama plant that builds every Toyota Corolla Cross sold in America rolled its one millionth vehicle off the line on October 28, five years and one month after the first one.

Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, the joint venture that Toyota and Mazda own in equal halves, marked the milestone at its factory west of Huntsville with the two crossovers it builds, the Corolla Cross and the Mazda CX-50, and with $120,000 in grants to four local organizations that helped train its workforce. The plant now employs about 4,500 people.

The company announced the milestone on October 28, and WAFF in Huntsville reported that the grants go to Calhoun Community College, Kids to Love, Morgan County Schools and the Alabama Automotive Manufacturers Association. "Reaching one million vehicles is an extraordinary accomplishment," Erik Skaggs, the company’s senior vice president, said, crediting the dedication, skill and teamwork of its employees. Chip Cherry, the president and CEO of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber, called the plant an invaluable part of the regional economy.

The plant has reached the figure faster than its own capacity would suggest. Toyota and Mazda announced the venture in March 2018 as a $1.6 billion factory able to build 300,000 vehicles a year, split evenly between the two brands, and the investment had grown to $2.3 billion by the time the first dealer-ready Corolla Cross came off the line on September 30, 2021, according to the state’s Made in Alabama development office. Mazda’s CX-50 followed on its own line in January 2022, according to the company’s own releases, so a million vehicles in just over five years works out to roughly 200,000 a year, two thirds of what the plant was built to make.

The Corolla Cross is the reason Toyota’s side of the plant is busy. CarBuzz notes that the plant built 99,798 Corolla Crosses and 110,345 CX-50s for US buyers in 2025, and this year the Toyota is pulling ahead, with 90,131 sales through September, up 22.9 percent, which puts it on pace to pass last year’s record before the end of the year, as Toyota Report reported earlier this month. CarBuzz also reports that Mazda Canada has stopped importing the CX-50 because of tariffs, which leaves the Mazda line more dependent on American buyers than it was a year ago.

The Huntsville factory is the newest of Toyota’s 11 US manufacturing plants, and its engines come from the Toyota engine plant across town that opened in 2003. Toyota says its roughly 48,000 direct US employees have built more than 36 million vehicles in the country.

The Toyota Report Take

A million vehicles in five years is a solid result for a plant that started its first line in the autumn of 2021, but the more telling number is how the mix is shifting. The Corolla Cross went from a new nameplate to a record-setting one without a redesign, and the Toyota line in Huntsville is the one with room to grow. The grants are a nice gesture, and the millionth car is a photo opportunity, but the real test for Huntsville is whether Toyota decides the Corolla Cross deserves more of that 300,000-unit capacity than the even split the two companies agreed to in 2018.