Currently reading: Toyota to remanufacture cars up to three times in UK

Burnaston, which builds the Toyota Corolla hatchback and estate, could help cars have even longer lives

Toyota will begin comprehensively refreshing ex-customer cars at its UK manufacturing facility as part of a drive to add value to vehicles throughout their life cycles.

Agustín Martín, president and managing director of Toyota GB, gave Autocar the first details of a new process that Toyota will implement as part of its new fleet-focused mobility sub-brand, Kinto. He said: “We need to stretch the way we look at life for both the vehicle and the customer.

"I think we’re very familiar with the usual two- to three-year cycles that are extremely popular in the UK, but we need to go beyond that two- to three-year cycle and say: ‘Okay, what happens in that second cycle and in the third cycle?’”

In order to extend its contact time with customers “at least to 10 years”, Toyota will take vehicles back to the factory after their first use cycle (ie a typical lease contract) and refurbish them “to the best standard” to ensure the second user has as new a vehicle as possible.

The same process could also be carried out, Martín suggested, before the third use cycle, after which Toyota will focus its efforts on recycling the vehicles as efficiently as possible.

Toyota manufacturing

While the details of the vehicles’ end-of-life process have yet to be laid out, Martín hinted that the focus will be on avoiding waste and reducing the environmental impact of new vehicle production.

He said: “How do we recycle it? How do we reuse different parts that are essential and maybe can be used for other services? How do we then rebuild the batteries, reuse them and recycle them? How do we use part of the material for the brand-new vehicle that’s going to be used in the factory?”

Toyota’s emphasis on customer satisfaction and vehicle durability extends to its first production BEV, the bZ4X, which is due in early 2022. Its 71.4kWh battery, giving a range of 280 miles, is promised to retain up to 90% of its usable capacity after 10 years of use.

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Felix Page

Felix Page
Title: Deputy editor

Felix is Autocar's deputy editor, responsible for leading the brand's agenda-shaping coverage across all facets of the global automotive industry - both in print and online.

He has interviewed the most powerful and widely respected people in motoring, covered the reveals and launches of today's most important cars, and broken some of the biggest automotive stories of the last few years. 

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GavJ 14 January 2022
As direct sales continue to grow with the likes of Cazoo and Cinch proving it is viable and very lucrative, it's clear Toyota want to have a piece of the pie.

It's only a matter of time before all car sales will go online.
You will order your new car online. It will get picked up at the end of the rental period. Refurbed and sold again online.

Brightly lit dealerships will be a thing of the past and replaced by cheap "service centres" on industrial estates.

All this run on staff at a smidgen over minimum wage.

Fred_4x4 11 January 2022

Why ? In Australia Landcruisers 20 years old or more with over 500 000 KM on them are not uncommon ....Seriously though it would be nice if Toyota would make things like long engines or crate engines from older models available as it would help people maintaining older models. For example, 1HD-T and 1HD-FT engines ..

Strawman_John 10 January 2022
3 year old cars do not and should not need a remanufacture. Sorry but this sounds like Toyota setting up a facility to give ex lease cars a tart up and resell. There is a strong threat that for cars there will be even more of a move to leasing models so Toyota are trying to keep all the money in-house. Fair enough but remanufacture sounds about as misleading and green washing as calling petrol hybrids you cannot plug in self charging rather than the reality of being petrol powered hybrids.

Real remanufactured vehicles would be end of life ones brought back to usable status, 10 year old plus cars. This is not offering to extend the vehicles life so is not real remanufacturing. Is it just tidy up and resell or put on lease again.