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Kentucky: home of bourbon, horse racing… and the largest Toyota plant in the world? You might expect Japan to hold that title, but the numbers tell a different story. Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK) is Toyota’s biggest production facility, assembling over half a million vehicles a year. If you drive a Camry, RAV4, or Lexus ES, there’s a good chance it rolled off the line in the Bluegrass State.

How Toyota Kentucky became the company’s biggest plant

Toyota’s biggest plant isn’t in Tokyo or Osaka—it’s in Georgetown, Kentucky. That’s right. The Bluegrass State is home to Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, the company’s largest production facility in the world. And it’s not just big—it’s a powerhouse.

According to Toyota: “The 9,000-plus team members at the plant can produce up to 550,000 vehicles and 600,000 engines a year.” That’s not just a lot of cars. That’s a small city’s worth of brand-new Toyota Camrys, RAV4s, and Lexus ES models rolling out every year.

Why would you build a car assembly plant in northern Kentucky? Well it has access to a relatively inexpensive labor force. It is also just five hours down I-75 from Detroit, so buying components from suppliers in The Motor City is easy. And it has a great, central location for shipping complete vehicles all over North America.

Toyota’s Kentucky plant isn’t going anywhere

Main Street in Georgetown, Kentucky
Georgetown, Kentucky | alexeys via iStockPhoto

Toyota has already retooled its Kentucky plant for its next-generation vehicle manufacturing process. It’s called the Toyota New Global Architecture. This system makes vehicles “through smarter, more flexible manufacturing and innovation.” That means Toyota isn’t just cranking out cars—it’s building them better, faster, and more efficiently. Company Brass has kicked around the idea of future plants so nimble that each one can make any model to order.

And they’re not stopping at gas-powered cars. TMMK is set to assemble hydrogen fuel cell modules for heavy-duty commercial trucks—a first for Toyota in the U.S. That’s a huge step toward a cleaner automotive future.

Toyota is investing in Kentucky’s communities, too. “Since 1986, Toyota has invested more than $147 million in numerous nonprofit partners across Kentucky.” That’s schools, local organizations, and charities all benefiting from Toyota’s presence.

TMMK isn’t just the biggest Toyota plant. It might be the most important. It’s where Toyota builds its best-selling models, tests future tech, and invests in a cleaner, more efficient way to make cars.

You can take a tour of Toyota’s Kentucky plant in the video embedded below:

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Staff Writer

Henry Cesari

Henry Cesari is a MotorBiscuit Staff Writer who brings his deep interest in vintage cars, trucks, and motorcycles to the site. Henry covers Ford models daily, including the F-150. Having restored his first classic car at just 16 years old, Henry has wrenched on everything from overland campers to Japanese motorcycles and even pre-war Bugattis. He’s an avid attendee at local car shows and genuinely enjoys connecting with fellow auto enthusiasts. Henry earned a Bachelor’s in Anthropology and English from the University of Vermont.

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