Toyota Opens New Corolla Plant in Mississippi BLUE SPRINGS, Miss. (November 17, 2011) – Toyota team members today celebrated the opening of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Mississippi (TMMMS), the company’s new $800 million plant outside of Tupelo that assembles the Corolla, the world’s best-selling car of all time. Joining the celebration were Toyota Motor Corporation President Akio Toyoda and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.
Originally this plant was slated to build Priuses. Mississippi Plant to Build Toyota Prius Hybrids - Latest News, Features, and Reviews - Automobile Magazine - Mobile Toyota to Build the Prius in the U.S. in 2010 - Car News - Car and Driver
So Toyota dumps Nummi and the Fremont plant and it's Union workers for non-union Mississippi workers, same old sad tale, more workers making less money and paying less taxes. I imagine the workers at that plant won't be able to buy what they are making. I understand being a fan of a Toyota product, but I don't understand being a fan of Toyota.
Corolla FX16 ? Wow ... you need to do more homework: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/play_full.php?play=403&act=0 http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/nummi?act=0 http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/02/business/la-fi-toyota-gm-lawsuit-20101202 Kinda bizarre how info can get so backward. I mean GM abandons NUMMI - off shores production to Canada, Mexico, China etc ... even as Toyota opens manufacturing here in the use - and thus Toyota is the big bad wolf. Better try again. .
hill already jumped on this one but yeah, GM abandoned NUMMI as part of their bankruptcy. Toyota sold a portion of NUMMI to Tesla so they can produce EVs. I'm not sure what part of this makes Toyota the one to "dump[ed]" NUMMI and the union workers. Because it is not possible to build a manufacturing plant in under one year, consider that Toyota started working on this facility before GM sucked up taxpayers' money, while NUMMI was still in full swing.
I don't get it. GM dumps NUMMI, leaves Toyota with the burden of the entire plant in an economy that was hurting everyone and Toyota gets the blame for closing the plant? Almost everyone that was let go was rehired when Tesla bought back the plant.♦
Toyota's reasons for closing the plant aside... Nummi employed 4700 when the plant closed. Tesla has plans to employ 1000 if their plans proceed on schedule. I'm waiting for Nummi to implode as they try to produce an all new limited production car for their target price.
No, I seriously doubt almost everyone that NUMMI employed was hired by Tesla. There's no need since the cars aren't even available yet and the numbers they will produce are far lower than the # NUMMI pumped out. Tesla customers get a peek at Model S at Fremont factory - San Jose Mercury News says History likely to repeat itself at Nummi site - Page 4 - SFGate mentions 5,739 for 2002 employment there. It also mentions "428,632 Number of cars and trucks built at Nummi during peak production in 2006". But yeah, GM abandoned NUMMI, leaving Toyota holding the bag and they unfortunately decided to close it down. NUMMI was the only UAW auto plant Toyota had. I doubt the Mississippi plant is union since none of the Toyota plants in the US are. But yes, the MS plant broke ground in 2007 while NUMMI closed on April 1, 2010. Another problem is that CA isn't a business friendly state and the Bay Area (which Fremont is part of) is a very high cost of living area due to the high cost of housing (in addition to the state income tax). So, it makes sense to build cars in lower cost areas.
If you're referring to the Tesla plant, yeah... I do wonder about their sustainability as an independent entity. From http://priuschat.com/forums/tesla/98263-bloomberg-risk-takers-elon-musk.html, Tesla definitely had a very rocky start w/Elon Musk pouring a TON of his own money (pretty much all his personal wealth, at the time) into the company, to keep it afloat.
Mississippi is not union. Toyota had a new plant that could hire a non-union workforce to cut costs and rules. They decided not to build prius in Mississippi. It was a business decision to move cars from nummi, but both gm and toyota are responsible for the closure. building cars pumps out ghgs too, and CA gets credit for reducing ghg by shutting down the plant and moving the engergy and jobs to other states.
You're biases are blatant and showing. Since you only have a partial and selective memory, here's the rest of the story. NUMMI was a joint-venture between GM and Toyota. When GM went bankrupt it dumped the entire plant in Toyota's lap and walked away. Toyota is not a welfare office, it's a business which has one primary goal....make money for the shareholders. If the new and modern plant in Miss is better located to serve the entire US at lower cost and more profit....goodbye NUMMI. It really is that simple.
When the economy crashed Miss lost the Prius and Toyota cut the expensive NUMMI. Actually they sort of still own NUMMI, but it was handed by Toyota to Tesla. Of course, Toyota then realized that it was expensive to build their aging compact in Canada with a weak US dollar and that empty Miss plant now came in handy.
I don't disagree. Toyota decided to build the prius in thailand not Mississippi, I don't think that has worked out so well for them. Toyota invested in tesla and part of the deal was tesla take over nummi. Here is a little perspective NUMMI to close as Toyota reins in expectations - BusinessWeek close down your most expensive factory because you overbuilt. Its just a bonus that you get to get out of dealing with California regulation and uaw. OK those last two were why it was the most expensive and it made it obvious to close.
The Thai built Prii are only for the Asian market. I do not believe that there are currently any Thai build vehicles being exported to America.
The decision was to expand prius production in Thailand not the US. Production problems of parts and cars in thailand will impact US availability. The alternative that Toyota decided against was building the cars here as planned, and continuing shipping the ones built in japan to rest of asia until they start producing prii in china. Toyota did have to scale back expansion plans, but could have stuck to the plan of building north american prii, which would given the strong yen, more cost effective that shipping from japan.
