Toyota Peugeot Citroën Automobile Czech (TPCA) is an automobile manufacturing company in Kolín, Czech Republic. It is a joint venture between Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan and PSA Peugeot Citroën of France. TPCA produces small cars for the European market. Production started in February, 2005, though the official opening ceremony was not until June. TPCA is the company French president Nicolas Sarkozy had in mind in his televised attack on free trade.[1][2]
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The manufacturing company produces three cars that are, in essence, the same.
These are the Citroën C1, Peugeot 107 and Toyota Aygo.
These cars share the vast majority of parts with only small cosmetic alterations (see badge engineering).
Nicolas Sarkozy referred to the plant in a televised speech against certain types of free trade:
(Translated from french)
"I want us to stop the relocation ... To create a factory in India to sell Renault in India is justified, but to create a factory in the Czech Republic to sell cars in France is not justified".
In January 2010, Toyota announced a worldwide recall on several of their vehicles for a faulty sticking accelerator pedal - in which the Aygo is affected. Under certain circumstances, the pedal can stick in a partially depressed position, or return slowly to the off position. PSA Peugeot Citroën followed suit, announcing a recall of "under 100,000 units" of the Citroën C1 and the Peugeot 107 for the same issue.[3] New information from Toyota has suggested, however, that only Aygos and Peugeot 107s with Aisin Ez-drive automated manual gearboxes (Multi-mode/2-Tronic) are affected, and that those with manual gearboxes are not.[4]