More news from Ford, which told us their plans for Malaysia earlier this week. The Blue Oval and Mazda, joint owners of the AutoAlliance Thailand (AAT) plant in Rayong, have announced an additional US$27 million investment in the shared plant. The money is to further upgrade the pick-up truck line and increase capacity by another 20,000 units per year.

AAT produces the all-new Ford Ranger T6 and new Mazda BT-50 pick-up trucks for Thailand and the world. The new investment will include facility upgrades such as additional robotic equipment and tooling to help increase line speed and output. The new capacity will start to come online next month.

The additional 20k units bring the total annual capacity of AAT's pick-up truck line to 195,000 units, bringing overall plant capacity to 295,000 units per year, including passenger cars like the Ford Fiesta, Mazda 2 and Mazda 3.

This latest cash injection increases Ford and Mazda's total joint investment in the AAT facility to nearly US$2 billion since operations began in 1995. Last year, both companies jointly-invested US$350 million to support facility upgrades and supplier tooling for production of the new Ranger and BT-50.

The new Ranger will be launching middle of this year. Read our test drive report of the impressive T6 here.