ChinaToyota is nearing completion of a Lexus factory in Shanghai, the first plant the brand has had in China and the first that Toyota will own outright there. Every Toyota-badged car built in China until now has come from one of two joint ventures, FAW Toyota or GAC Toyota, in which a Chinese partner holds half. The Jinshan site has no partner at all.
That structure is rarer than it sounds. Foreign carmakers were required to build through a local joint venture until China began lifting the rule in 2018, and Tesla’s Shanghai plant was the first to be built under the new terms. Lexus is the second foreign brand to get one, and the first Japanese one.
What is being built
Toyota is putting 14.6 billion yuan ($2.02 billion) into the site, on a plot of roughly 1.13 million square metres in the Jinshan district in the south-west of the city, acquired for 1.353 billion yuan ($189 million). Groundbreaking was on 27 June 2025, construction is due to finish in August 2026, and the plant is designed for about 100,000 cars a year. Toyota says it will develop and build Lexus electric vehicles and batteries there, drawing on Chinese suppliers.
Production starts in the second half of 2027, which is later than the completion date suggests. Toyota’s own announcement of the wholly owned company dates from February 2025.
The first car, and how fast it ramps
Nikkei Asia reports that the first model will be an electric crossover developed specifically for China, with the body made using large single-piece castings. The same reporting puts first-year output at around 1,000 cars a month, rising to tens of thousands of units from 2028.
Those two numbers are worth holding together. A thousand a month is 12,000 a year against a plant rated for 100,000, so the opening year is a deliberately slow ramp rather than a plant running at a fraction of its purpose. The 2028 step is where the capacity figure starts to mean something.
This is not the Lexus TZ, the three-row electric SUV Lexus revealed in May as a global model for the United States, Japan and Europe. The Jinshan car is described as a separate, China-specific model.
Shanghai authorities have said the plant’s output will not stay in China, and that exports will include shipments to Japan.
