Changing face of Camry

Engineering changes to the Camry Hybrid for Australia won't be that far reaching, says Toyota Australia. The company's Technical Centre Australia (TTCAu) has been engaged on matching the petrol/electric Camry's ride, handling and steering to the same traits in the conventional car.

Mike Breen, Toyota's Manager of Public Relations, confirmed that the Camry Hybrid would be running around on 'Australianised' underpinnings when the Carsales Network approached him after the official commencement of pilot production for the car.

"TTCAu [Toyota Technical Centre Australia] did a lot of work on suspension and steering -- so they're the two major areas of the car that they worked on for here," he said.

Given the added weight from its Nickel-metal Hydride battery pack at the rear, combined with an electric motor and inverter under the bonnet, the Camry Hybrid features upgraded struts to carry the weight. We asked Breen whether the different suspension components required further durability testing as a consequence. He answered in the negative.

"Basically, the Camry that we've had here now for two and half years odd, it's pretty much that structure, so it's more [about] fine-tuning suspension and steering -- things like that," he responded.

"Australians like to have the steering heavier and a little more Europeanised, so the TTCAu guys worked a lot on the steering calibration and also the suspension tuning -- spring and damper rates."

When the production version of the car arrives on the scene, around February of next year, it will be hard to pick from a conventional model. Both the hybrid variants and the conventional cars gain a mildly facelifted look, courtesy of a chrome-heavy grille, for the most part.

Where Toyota has spent money in bringing the hybrid to market has been principally in the area of manufacturing infrastructure. Changes to the Altona production plant have been extensive and, in some cases, unforeseen.

For example, on the final line, the conventional cars were previously dragged along while parked in neutral. The original conveyor system comprised a single slat that held fast the car's drive wheel on the driver's side, while the front drive wheel on the passenger side rolled as the car progressed. This line had to be upgraded to a two-slat conveyor system to move the hybrid cars along without either drive wheel turning, since one wheel revolving would have been charging the battery as the car moved along the line.

Toyota has done away with the original fixed-length conveyor for the engine line, allowing the flexibility to extend the line, for the addition of stations in between. The new engine lines are also more ergonomically efficient for the workers.

Similarly, Chassis Line 2, was extended a couple of stations to allow the Hybrid models' inverters to be fitted along the way. According to Toyota's Manager of the Manufacturing #2 Division, Doug Rickarby, Chassis Line 2 was subject to the most "significant impact from the Hybrid".

On that line, a 'Hybrid By-Pass Operator' joins the car and stays with it throughout its journey through the rest of the plant. That worker has to carry out numerous tasks on the car, all of which are specific to Hybrids, but not conventional Camrys.

Rickarby says that the need for the Hybrid By-Pass Operator is because some elements of Hybrid Camry manufacture are significantly more time-consuming than in the case of conventional cars. These elements include manufacturing processes that may not even apply to the conventional Camry -- such as fitting the inverter or the Nickel-Metal Hydride battery pack.

It's a solution that's used in the production of American Camrys too, says Rickarby, but other Hybrid Camry plants around the world use a Hybrid by-pass line, with fixed-point operators. In that case, the hybrid car is taken off the main production line for the hybrid-specific parts to be fitted, before the vehicle rejoins the main line, out of sequence.

Another aspect of Camry production that has changed for the better with the upgrade for the Hybrid is the overhead trolley system used to transport the vehicles around the plant before they can roll on their own wheels. This system was originally a 'single-trolley' system that was more than adequate when the factory was building the Corolla in the mid-1990s, but as the Corolla gave way to Camry/Aurion and now, the heavier still Camry Hybrid, the trolley system is progressively being replaced with a 'twin-trolley' system to cope with the extra weight.

To clear room on the factory floor, Toyota has relocated strut production to the rear of the body shop and, where wheels and tyres were once fitted and balanced in-house, that task is now handled by a third-party contractor off site.

The wheels arrive at the end of the chassis line already fitted with tyres. They're supplied in the precise sequence -- in the latest iteration of 'Just in time' logistics -- to meet the car to which they'll be fitted, at the appropriate point of production. Spares are hived off from the wheel/tyre set for each car, and travel via Automatic Guided Vehicle to another part of the plant where they await fitting to the same car.

Toyota subscribes to the ANDON manufacturing system, which relies on signboards and the dulcet MIDI tones of 'Greensleeves' to alert line supervisors of a glitch requiring their attention. If a supervisor is unable to attend the call for attention quickly enough, the whole line grinds to a halt.

Roughly 880 vehicles are undergoing production at any one time and the full manufacturing process from beginning to end takes approximately two full days. Currently, a conventional Camry rolls off the end of the line every 117 seconds, but Toyota plans for that interval to be reduced to 102 seconds from September 14.

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