In the late 1980s, at the peak of the Japanese asset price bubble, Toyota started to research the possibility of establishing a new vehicle assembly plant.

[5] Other reasons cited for the labour shortage were declining birthrates and lack of interest in new workers for "dirty, difficult, or dangerous" jobs.

[6] The Kyushu region was judged as the best option, as it had the Miyata Industrial Park, a site with an extensive transport infrastructure and space to build large facilities, as well as a workforce surplus.

[5][7] The reason for this was to fully take advantage of the tax breaks,[5] to be able to pay lower salaries than the ones paid by the parent, and to be able to adapt easier the plant operations.

[5] The plant was used to test a (new for Toyota) semi-automatised production system with its single assembly line divided into smaller autonomous sections and increased responsibility and input from workers.

[5] When the Miyata plant started operations, the bubble had ended and the Japanese economy entered into a recession, which lowered the sales of the company's products.

Toyota Motor Kyushu adapted its structure, making production systems more flexible and forming workers into a more multi-skilled approach.

The first Lexus-badged products assembled in that year would also have a significant impact on the company, as that marque would increasingly be its main focus.

That same year, the company stopped assembling the Mark II, transferring its production to Kanto Auto Works.

In 2005, it opened a second assembly line for the Miyata plant focused exclusively on Lexus-badged vehicles, doubling the production capacity.

[21] In that year, Toyota Motor Kyushu launched the sixth-generation Lexus ES[22] and discontinued HS production for the United States due to low sales.

[26] In November 2021, it entered into production the second-generation Lexus NX (the first Lexus-badged plug-in hybrid vehicle), following parts procurement delays partially caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

[27] The company is considering building an EV-only assembly line, as Toyota plans to phase out non-EV Lexus production by 2035.

Most of the production time (11 of 19 hours) is in the paint shop, as Lexus' cars have a very intensive coating process that includes water polishing.

[32] From 2016 onwards, the company has a research development facility (Technical Centre) separated from the rest of the Miyata plant operations.