Instead of pickups, Toyota Motor Corp.’s San Antonio plant currently is turning out plastic face shields as a community service — though most of its workers remain idled in a six-week shutdown.

Toyota spokeswoman Melissa Sparks said about 20 workers are producing the face shields, which the automaker initially is distributing to Bexar County first responders and area medical personnel.

The company began making the shields early this month.

“The current crisis we’re all facing is a humbling experience, but rallying to support our first responders in San Antonio is something we can all agree needs to be done,” said Kevin Voelkel, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas..

Toyota is planning to produce 30,000 face shields for local use and 40,000 for Texas. The state will determine where to distribute the face shields it receives, Sparks said.

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Toyota’s sprawling South Side plant employs 3,2000 workers. The manufacturer closed the facility and its 14 other North American plants March 23 because of concerns about workers’ health and declining sales stemming from the coranavirus pandemic.

The company plans to reopen the plant May 4.

Nearly 400 local contract workers for Toyota, hired through staffing agencies, will be laid off next week. The bulk of Toyota’s San Antonio workers are seeing a combination of paid leave and nonpaid furlough days during the shutdown.

The San Antonio plant manufacturers Tacomas and Tundras.

Toyota plans to invest close to $400 million largely to upgrade the plant’s production technology. But its plastic-shield making is low-tech.

“We have the team members manually assembling the face shields,” Sparks said. “There is not a lot of machinery needed other than cutting the right shapes and sizes of materials.”

She said the San Antonio plant can make about 6,000 to 8,000 face shields a day.

The automaker also is manufacturing face shields at its two plants in Kentucky and Alabama.

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A Toyota supplier in San Antonio, Reyes Hayashi Automotive, likewise is producing face shields for first responders. A spokesman said 35 workers are making 20,000 a day.

Toyota officials also said Wednesday they are helping two ventilator manufacturers with “efficiency improvements” and have provided monetary support for their research and development. They didn’t provide additional details.

The conversion of factories to produce ventilators has been a hot issue during the crisis. The Trump administration used a wartime emergency act to order General Motors to produce the machines.

General Motors has teamed up with ventilator maker Ventec Life Systems to produce the ventilators at its auto parts plant in Kokomo, Ind.

The plant is expected to manufacture 30,000 ventilators, with half to be delivered by the end of June.

Randy Diamond covers energy and manufacturing in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Randy, become a subscriber. randy.diamond@express-news.net