Where is the Prius made?

I listed on our FAQ an interesting page from the Yale Faculty of Engineering Wiki that details the specific factories in Japan.

Currently as I understand it, all auto factories in China only make vehicles for their domestic market.

 

Prius is up to know manufactured in Japan. The Camry hybrid will be the first car that will be manufactured in USA (and Japan) but factory is not online yet (I think). This is the first time I heard China mentioned for hyrbids

 

it was announced last year that Toyota would manufacture the Prius in China for the Chinese market only. There was a thread here on PC about it. I want to say October or November. At that time there was also a rumor that there would be a line for them here in NA but nothing since.

 

If the first character of your "VIN" is a "J", the vehicle was assembled in Japan.

 

The gov't requires disclosure of where your car is built. Mine said 100% made in Japan and I bought last month. I guess if you start seeing made in China disclosures, you'll know.

 

Where is the Prius made?

In heaven of course

 

I think the Kentucky plant will start making TCHs starting around SEP or there abouts. The Chinese Prii are for the Chinese domestic market. China requires all foreign companies to partner with chinese companies and sell the product under the chinese manufacturer's brand name, if I'm not mistaken. Basically, it's a great way for the chinese to play catch-up, getting to take a look at many of the foreign companies processes and designs. They can do this because of the vast potential market that china represents. I'd do the same thing if I were in their shoes.

 

After some research, came up with this:

[attachmentid=3507]

This is arial view of "Toyota City" right outside of Aishi Japan. All of the major blobs you see are Toyota plants or parts manufacturing facilities.

I've marked the Tsutsumi plant, where the Prius is made. This plant also makes Camry, Premio, Allion, Caldina, WISH, and Scion tC. It was opened in 1970, the building is 611,000 sq m. In 2005, it employed 5070 workers.

Sources: google earth, & http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/pdf/toyota_world/2006/chap2.pdf

I started with the pdf and used google earth to make a match. You can see the final coordinates in the lower left of the image. Using google earth to look around all of Toyota City and surrounding area leaves quite an impression. There are more plants not shown in this image. I tried to zoom in and see if I could see any Prii in the lots, but not enough resolution at that level of detail.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SomervillePrius @ May 17 2006, 02:35 PM) [snapback]257084[/snapback]</div>

I mailed the Kentucky plant a letter last month asking about the start date for the Camry Hybrid in the US. The customer relations department emailed me back and said Fall 2006. All Camry Hybrids coming in now are made in Japan.

 

In 2005, Toyota made 179,407 Prius in Japan and 113 in China.

If you have your VIN number, the 11th digit shows the factory.
3: Toyota Tsutsumi plant, Japan
7: Toyota Auto Body Fujimatsu plant, Japan

Edit:
Maybe, following number exists on early production...
0: Toyota Tsutsumi plant, Japan

Ken@Japan

 

Speaking of VIN information, I stumbled across a handy VIN decoder on the Toyota website:

http://fleet.toyota.com/html/vin_decoder.asp

 

Dood omfg that is way cool.. heh mine is def japonees(sp)
go cool linky thingys that doo neat stuff
and of course go prius/toyota!!

 

I took a tour of what I'm 90% sure was the Tsutsumi plant in late 2003 well before I ever had or even test drove a Prius. I did see the 2nd gen (for the US) Prius being assembled there on the same line as the Camry and I believe the Lexus ES along w/a whole bunch of other models. No cameras are allowed inside though.

http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/about_toyota/fa...tour/index.html for more info. It's near Nagoya if you ever end up being in Japan near there.

If you've never been in a car factory before, it's pretty cool. I've also toured a Mazda plant in Hiroshima, a Nissan plant in Oppama, and the NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA.

 

all auto makers, mercedes, bmw, vw, toyota, honda, etc. have plants in china that produce the same vehicles that we see on the streets in the US.
The plan is to bring the QC and technology of auto making in china up to par slowly by only selling the cars made there domestically, eventuallly, those cars will be exported overseas. Just think, twenty years ago Made in Japan meant cheap and undesirable. Perhaps 10-20 years from now, anything not made in China would be conisdered weird and foreign and cheap.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ May 18 2006, 03:32 PM) [snapback]257718[/snapback]</div>

Just pick up the phone and give them a call (see the URL in my original post). I don't recall what I did off hand since it was >2.5 years ago.

Not sure what part of Canada you're in, but if you just an auto factory tour and you're in the west coast, the NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA (http://www.nummi.com/tours.html) is great too. They just don't make Priuses there.

 

The Prius is made in Japan