DETROIT - Toyota Motor Corp. will start producing the Prius in the U.S. for the first time as the Japanese automaker adjusts its U.S. manufacturing operations to meet demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.
The company said Thursday that it would start producing the gasoline-electric hybrid in late 2010 at a plant being built in Blue Springs, Miss. Toyota already builds a hybrid version of the Camry sedan in
Kentucky, but this will be the first time the Prius, which the company has been selling for more than a decade, will be built outside Japan and China.
Toyota will suspend production of the Tundra pickup truck in San Antonio and the Sequoia sport utility vehicle at its Princeton,
Ind., plant for three months starting Aug. 8 because of declining demand. In the spring, it will stop producing Tundras in Princeton and will consolidate all truck production in San Antonio.
WHILE GM SITS AROUND WITH ITS THUMB UP ITS ---, Toyota flexibly shifts to what is needed on the world market. Why doesn't GM just do something similar, OH I know because it is run by REPUBLICANS that have no idea what a plan is, what an exit strategy is and or could give a crap about the people they serve.
Well let the Dinosaurs perish. It is obvious that American Workers are some of the best in the world, however many of America's managers are morons on a grandios scale.
GM sold 843 hybrids of all types during the first quarter of 2008, according to the industry newspaper
Automotive News. Compared that with Ford, which sold 5,225 hybrids during that time. The hands-down hybrid leader, Toyota, sold 278,000 in the U.S. alone last year and 430,000 worldwide. CSM Worldwide, expects GM to seriously increase its hybrid output, turning the automaker into a serious contender within the next few years. He expects it to produce 40,000 to 50,000 hybrids this year, more than doubling last year's production.
So while Toyota will build their Hybrids in America, GM builds theirs in Mexico, and soon in China. GM plans to create a research facility in Shanghai for $250m to develop
hybrid cars and
alternative energy vehicles.
[Don't you just love those family values... If I really want to support my country, I will have to buy a Toyota I guess.
First 