Prius to become American Made - Toyota to build plant in Mississippi

It's being made outside Tupelo, birthplace of The King. It will only accept Elvis songs.

 

Sorry inaccurate statement here. This is what the domestic hate-boys always harp on concerning Toyota, Honda and the rest of the transplants. Some components definitely are made in Japan. But last I heard US Steel and Goodyear and Alcoa and the engine makers and metal formers in Buffalo, WV were still located in this country.

There are very specific regulations about parts content as shown on the new vehicles. The Camry has about 70% US and Canadian content IIRC meaning that at least 70% of the parts were actually made here.

 

It might be assembled in Mississippi, but they aren't going to "build" it there. The parts could come from anywhere - Mexico, Japan, Canada, Korea, China, etc.

 

Yeah, the reliability of those American-built Camrys (since 1998) really sucks. Just look at that! Who would want to buy a car that was so poorly made? This proves that cars assembled in the USA have abysmal quality.

Oh wait, red means good. Never mind.

 

Nice data driven post

 

Smart move by Toyota to both increase the supply as well as head off any potential hybrid export quotas imposed by the US Government to 'protect' the America consumer from Toyota's Japan built hybrids.

As Detroit continues to sink and Toyota continues to grow, don't be surprised if the US Government decides to jump in and reduce the number of cars that Toyota is allowed to import into the USA.

 

Wow. Everyone has a right to an opinion but.... wow.

This issue has been beat to death as well here. American made quality is not bad like it was five and ten years ago. In many cases its comparable to Japanese and now often exceeds European quality. There are duds out there from America and from overseas.

Maybe you might give the American worker a chance? See what they can do?

 

Is there any EVIDENCE that American made Toyota's are worse then Japanese? I thought consumer reports and others said the Camry quality problem was related to V6 engines not to where they where made.

 

I did give them a chance and they showed me what they could do. That is the reason I now have two Japanese made Toyotas.

 

TO ALL - i too have owned american cars, supported the workers here (detroit). I've had bad experiences with some of the US cars, not all. The cars that i've had problems with, they were major problems. The corvettes from bowling green were great........didn't have any major problems.

Japanese made vehicles are very well made cars. This is the reason for their great reputation. so,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,the sign of the times are rapidly changing. I think the majority of the people here in the USA are happy, then a bit reserved at the same time...................the bottom line.........................OK to the american made PRII, however, they BETTER be as good as the japanese made ones.

especially for the gen III. let's cross our fingers!

 

there aren't too many major problems to speak of in american-assembled toyotas, it's mostly minor things. DH cites a squeaky center console plastic plate that wasn't put together as well as it should have been, that only happened in NA made camrys and not JP made.

a lot of it is in management style and company culture. i personally have a lot of faith in the ability of american workers IF (and this is a big if that often is not met) they are surrounded by a culture of productivity, improvement and pride in doing one's job right. in a culture of halfassing it, of course the quality is going to suck. if i didn't feel challenged, i'd produce crap for work too.

 

I am curious as to whether anyone knows the Camry production process well enough to tell me whether the 4 cylinder and V6 versions are built on different lines? And whether the transmissions in the two versions are really different? The results seem strangely different in CR. In the 2007 models, the major transmission item for the 4 is rated much better than average and the V6 is only average; and the 4 is rated at average for squeaks and rattles while the V6 is rated at much worse than average.

My experiences with American cars- a 1957 Ford; 1968, 1970, 1977 and 1981 Pontiacs; a 1989 Jeep, a 1990 Cadillac and a 2001 Chevy Blazer have all been pretty good, and none of them have beeen reflected as such in CR.

The reviewers for CR are just as biased as the rest of humanity. They used to love Toyota, then they moved onto Honda. Now they seem to be moving to Hyundai. They hate GM, Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. It doesn't mean you gotta not read CR, it just means you need to keep in mind they are human and biased too.

I bought my Prius because people I know told me they loved theirs, from the 89 Camry to the 07 V6 Camry owned by a good friend, and because nobody else had as good a fit for today's world.

 

I think anytime we can get more jobs, it's great news. Especially in sates like MS.

 

Ok, sorry but I didn't see Galaxee's post before posting my last one.

Bottom line: I think the American-made Prius will be a great car, because I think Toyota will make it work. They seem to be committed to fixing problems not fixing blame.

That being said, I might not take the first one off the line, but I hope not to need to do so either!

 

They are different because the auto transmission for the 4-cyl model is a 5-speed, and the one for the 6-cyl model is a 6-speed. The problems are isolated to the new 6-speed automatic transmission.

 

Get ready to see an American made Prius with a big chrome grill and loaded with glitzy glamour tinsel. I hope not.

 

The Pontiac Vibe vs the Toyota Matrix debate?:argue:
I'd take the Vibe on looks and the Matrix on being able to avoid GM dealerships.:fish2:

 

Hmmm...who is your mentor? Maybe you can recommend him/her to the typical American worker.

 

You can do this but you're just wasting your time. I was a Production Engineer responsible for quality and productivity in a Japanese owned transaxle facility located in Tennessee with mostly Latino assembly workers. There is no correlation between assembly day and quality problems, this is just an urban legend. I'm using round numbers here but ~95% of our quality problems were due to parts out of spec. A worker would discover a problem at end-of-the-line testing and trace it to a part. Usually I would have 5 to 10 transaxles on the line that would need to be repaired and that lot of parts would be quarentined and inspected. The supplier of those parts would go from no inspection or infrequent sampling inspection to 100% receiving inspection. (At the supplier's cost)

Only ~5% of quality problems were due to assembly mistakes and these were easily found and the assembly line.

Field failures are 99.99% part issues. Either the part was not designed correctly and wears prematurely or isn't manufactured correctly. The manufacturing issues are due to material property problems or machining problems. For example a powdered metal gear may break due to not being baked at the proper temperature. This is not something that can be visually seen and inspected for. A company is reliant on their supplier to destructive test product from each lot to ensure the spec is met.

 

So long as the warranties are the same, I wouldn't worry.