2017 Prius Tsutsumi, Toyota Assembly Video

It seems almost like a slow-mo video. I made aluminum beverage cans for 22 years. One time I got a tour of a whirlpool plant where they were making dishwashers. I couldn't figure out what it was for a while but something felt "off." Then I suddenly realized -- not only was is incredibly quiet, the building wasn't shaking. LOL!

 

Thanks for sharing.
My white Prius might be one of these!

 

Innovation: 100 Years of the Moving Assembly Line | Ford Motor Company

They also put the company on pace to produce 6 million vehicles in 2013 – approximately 16 vehicles every 60 seconds around the world.

 

And closed the Australian Manufacturing plant about 3 months ago.

 

Thousands to be jobless after Toyota closure

What are you Aussies buying?

 

SUVs and Twin-Cab Utes - none of which are made here - have taken over our market since fuel prices plummeted a few years ago.

Due to political incompetence, we've got free trade agreements with so many countries now - which all mean that they can dump cars without the previous tariffs which protected our industry. In the '60s, we made many, many brands, some from CKD packs (incl Merc, Chev, Chrysler, VOLVO, VW, Renault, Peugeot, Citroen and just about every British brand), and it meant labour, glass, wheels, tyres, upholstery at least were manufactured here even if some bodies or body parts were pressed elsewhere. By 1990, there were only 5 left, all with full manufacture, Nissan left 1991/2, Mitsubishi in 2006/7 leaving 3 - who leave last year, this year or next.

But the stupidity was that they were all making a similar sized car - our Holden Commodore (GM) and FORD Falcon were huge RWD cars within a couple of millimetres of each other in size, and CAMRY/AURION wasn't much smaller. Ford and Holden had "UTE" versions which sold well - largely as a 2 seater "pseudo-sporty" car with a tray and wide wheels - though also used by tradespeople, and GM a neat wagon.

TOYOTA had made Corollas here but stopped a decade or more ago, HOLDEN had made small and medium cars from way back in the '60s, but by 5 yrs ago was only making Cruze, but it was an underwhelming car compared with the opposition. FORD had a good SUV based on Falcon, but couldn't really compete with TOYOTA who had 3 SUVs in the same market.

Huge increase in SUV sales as well as a crazy increase in twin cab trucks as family cars - most from THAILAND - finally saw the industry without enough reasons to keep going. Not only have we lost 3 major manufacturers, but the industry which supplies them is going to disappear. Each has retained their substantial design labs - apparently we have designed GM and FORD product for many areas in the world for quite a long time.

Meanwhile, the politicians don't seem to have noticed - or cared.

 

Agreed. Also don't forget other factors in Australia:

- Soaring labour costs in Australia making manufacturing products increasingly uncompetitive and unsustainable
- Australian Manufacturers misreading the market and not switching to production of smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles soon enough (e.g., Ford should have commenced production of the Focus in Australia as originally planned years ago). The Holden Cruze (basically an old Daewoo design rebadged as a GM / Holden vehicle)
- Free Trade Agreement with countries like Thailand making manufacturing cars and importing to Australia much more attractive (and FTA with Japan making Japanese-built cars cheaper)
- Large numbers of car companies trying to sell a wide variety of vehicles to a relatively small Australian population

 

Agreed 101% - the Free Trade Agreements killed it. And it seemed to be a one-way FTA.

I don't think there is a single worldwide manufacturer who isn't importing into Australia, except maybe a few low volume ones which don't make RHD like Pagani.

The high A$ for a few years didn't help either - made imports cheaper, though it's dropped recently.

I couldn't understand why, 9 years ago we were still making 4 almost identical sized sedans. They were all good cars, quite well made, but they should have agreed to diversify, and we'd still have an industry today.

And I agree - the CRUZE was the wrong car, which didn't match the opposition.

 

Oops, I left my sentence about the Cruze incomplete. What I meant to say that the Cruze, being essentially a rebadged Daewoo (an old
design from before the company collapsed and was taken over by GM) is a very ordinary car compared to its competitors.

At least Toyota (and to a lesser extent, GM-Holden) had the foresight to increase its production of export vehicles and engines (Toyota Australia is one of the only non-Japanese factories producing hybrid engines), but at the end of the day, it still wasn't enough to forstall its factory closure later in 2017.

 

You know, all this sounds remarkably like what happened in Pommieland in the latter part of the 20th century. And, as for your 101% Alan: haven't I told you a million times not to exaggerate?

On the other hand, I'm hoping our Brexit will help restore equilibrium up here, but our labour costs will be a major problem compared with the Asian producers.

 

Did anyone notice they're installing both Li-ion and NiMH batteries? The Li-ion is smaller and labeled "Li-ion". The NiMH is bigger and slightly heavier too I believe. Notice at the inspection line at the end, when opening or closing the doors, the worker must put one hand behind their back, sort of like when a waiter serve a plate with one hand behind their back, lol.

 

I kind of wanted to know how many bolts they have for the batteries and how difficult it is to take out the seats to access them. But at the same time not really since thieves may get ideas from it too

 

How do I view the video? I just see a photo in your post.

 

I just see a photo from the browser on my iPhone but it played OK on a personal computer.
The embedding uses an html 5 player. I guess Apple is behind on their standards support.

 

No such problem with android phone.....