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Social media posts last month claimed Toyota had decided to move an auto manufacturing plant from Huntsville, Ala., to Ontario. The company says the claim is false. The claim originated from online accounts that appear to generate their content using artificial intelligence.
As Canada’s auto sector struggles under the weight of U.S. tariffs, some social media users celebrated news of a supposed “win” for the industry.
Multiple posts claimed Japanese automaker Toyota planned to move its manufacturing plant in Huntsville, Ala., to Ontario.
“Toyota just pulled the plug on their $9-billion plant in Alabama and gave it to Canada,” claimed a Feb. 19 post on the X platform, formerly Twitter, with around 44,000 likes.
On Threads, a post with around 48,000 likes claimed the planned plant would bring 4,000 jobs to Canada. Other posts on Facebook, LinkedIn and TikTok made similar claims about an existing or planned electric vehicle factory moving to Canada; some claimed it was a $7-billion move.
“There is no truth to this,” Toyota Canada media spokesperson Michael Bouliane wrote in an email.
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There are no company announcements or news reports that support the claim.
The Mazda Toyota manufacturing facility in Huntsville was announced in 2018 and completed in 2021, with the goal of hiring 4,000 employees.
The plant remains operational, and in June 2024 Toyota announced a US$282-million investment in the facility.
The $7 billion and $9 billion figures cited in the claims could come from spending Toyota announced for U.S. plants in news releases issued in 2019 and 2020.
Google’s AI search overview, which appears at the top of the page above links to search results, repeated the claims about the plant’s supposed move to Canada when searching keywords related to the story.
Searching “Toyota moving from Alabama to Canada” and “Toyota Alabama plant Canada” brought up AI overview responses supporting the false claim.
“Based on reports from February 2026, Toyota is shifting a planned $9-billion electric vehicle and battery megafactory project from Huntsville, Alabama, to Ontario, Canada,” read an overview generated Tuesday.
The “reports” cited in links within the overview are social media posts from unreliable sources that appear to use AI-generated scripts and visuals.
Google spokesperson Wendy Manton said in an email Wednesday that “the vast majority” of AI overviews meet Google’s standards for helpfulness and accuracy.
“Just like other features in search, issues can arise when there is an absence of high-quality information on the web on a particular topic, and we use these examples to improve AI overviews broadly,” Manton said.
After The Canadian Press inquired Tuesday about the AI content validating Toyota’s supposed move, the Google AI overview supporting the false claim no longer appeared in some searches Wednesday.
Previous Canadian press fact checks identified similar misleading search overviews related to a viral image and to Canadian hockey stars.
When asked about its AI overviews in September, Google gave a similar response and noted a lack of high-quality information can cause a “data void” that sometimes causes lower-quality information to appear.
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