Toyota to export three US-made vehicles to Japan
Toyota will begin shipping three vehicles manufactured in the US for sale in Japan in 2026 – the Camry sedan, Highlander SUV and Tundra pickup truck.
The Camry was last sold in Japan in 2023 but the Highlander has not been on sale there since 2007 (when it was badged as the Toyota Kluger). It is the first time the Tundra pickup has been sold in Japan.
The Camry is manufactured at Toyota’s plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, while the Highlander is made in its Indiana plant, at Princeton. The Tundra is manufactured at Toyota’s plant in San Antonio, Texas.
Toyota said it is currently not sharing any information about when the shipments will start or in what volumes the respective models will be shipped from those plants. As part of preparations to introduce these models to Japan, Toyota said it will make use of a new system being considered by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, following bilateral negotiations. No further details are being made available at this stage.
The carmaker has a number of options for vehicle processing at Toyota US west coast ports including at Long Beach, San Diego, Hueneme and Oakland in California, and Tacoma in the state of Washington. Overall, Toyota exports vehicles from 12 port terminals in the US.
Toyota did say that the sale of the three US models will enable it to meet the diverse needs of a broad range of customers, while also helping to improve Japan-US trade relations.
The export strategy comes months after the US and Japan signed a tariff deal in which Japan agreed to allow US-built vehicles to be sold there while the US set import tariffs on Japanese vehicle and parts imports at 15% (a reduction on the 25% introduced by the Trump administration earlier in the year). As part of the deal announced in September 2025, Japan has committed to invest $550 billion in strategic US sectors including semiconductors, energy and manufacturing.
Toyota does not have dedicated terminals managed in-house for export volumes from the US and neither does it have dedicated vessel contracts as it does for inbound volumes. That means Toyota is subject to the same delays that other carmakers are dealing with as they battle for space both inland and at sea.
However, in recent years Toyota in North America has been working to improve the sequencing and scheduling of vehicles at its ports of import and export. The goal is to ensure that Toyota provides accurate ETAs for the vehicles it is moving and in the process is able to learn where inefficiencies are occurring to iron them out.
The system of sequencing the vehicles is one that Toyota has used for the last 25 years but using the latest digital technology the company is enhancing that system to do closely detailed by-the-minute scheduling, using real-time information on each stage of the schedule to sequence vehicle movements more efficiently.
