Prius To Be Manufactured In United States

Toyota Motor of Japan said Thursday that it would build its popular gas-electric hybrid sedan, the Prius, in the United States for the first time as it tries to meet surging demand and struggles with falling sales of big trucks.

Starting in 2010, Toyota plans to make the Prius at a new factory in Blue Springs, Miss., that was originally intended to assemble sport utility vehicles. Toyota said shifting production to the Blue Springs plant, which is under construction, will help it alleviate shortages of the Prius, which gets an average of 46 miles a gallon and has months-long waiting lists at most dealers.

Toyota also said it would stop building its two largest vehicles, the Tundra pickup and Sequoia sport-utility vehicle, for three months before permanently halting production of the Tundra next spring at one of two plants that make it.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[JDOK]

Now, in the eleventh hour, the "big 3" decide to close some SUV and trucks plants and kick more people out on the street (the Japanese just retooled; no full-time employee lost their jobs), bring some existing fuel efficient automobile designs from Europe that they have been producing for years into the US (these cars will continue to be made in Europe and imported into the US) and finally, develop an electric plug-in for delivery in 2010 (GM had a plug-in in the mid 1990's in California which was so successful that the few people that were lucky enough to test them tried unsuccessfully to hide them when GM came to remove them and have them all compacted!)

They just don't care!

You may be able to tell that I for one will never buy another automobile from any of the big three. I will, however, be very happy to buy an automobile from a new American company just as long as the car is largely manufactured in the US and is competitively engineered with safety and quality in the forefront of the design.

[JDOK]

The failure of the American automobile industry is now complete and no longer even up for discussion. I know that $4+ gas and high wages/medical costs etc. are being blamed for this failure but in reality these are just side issues. It's the completely inept senior management, the overpaid clowns that look no further down the road than the next quarterly statement and their retirement packages, that are to blame. You simply can't tell me that the "big 3's" board rooms weren't filled with accountants instead of engineers. These white collar executive criminals made conscious decisions 5 years ago to make trucks and SUV's instead of fuel efficient cars. They choose todays profits for a successful tomorrow.

I feel very sorry for the men and women who work for these greedy and incompetent corporations. They, of course, are paying the price for of money over people.

[RuthlessDictator]

The notion that the automakers didn't see $4/gal. gas coming is total BS. They (the big 3, at least) were always in cahoots with Big Oil so they decided to milk the SUV craze for all its worth. The big three just don't want to build more efficient smaller cars, period!

Profits, profits, profits!

[francoise]

"sales of large pickups are down about 25 percent through June, and S.U.V. sales have fallen over 30 percent, according to data compiled by Ward"s Automotive Group."

Best news of the day !

[walk0nwalls]

Any news on lessening the nickel poisoning around the plants?

[RadCenter]

Note to Ford and GM: Why wasn't this you?
Note to Ford and GM stockholders: Why aren't you suing the company for gross mismanagement?

[HumeSkeptic]

Now there's a progressive American company.

[NeoStar9]

Well done Toyota. If GM and other American automakers won't step up then so be it. This is how you build a good reputation. You don't move plants you simply change what they produce. This hopefully might bring the price of the Prius down a little and forced other automakers to make a change. If GM and others go out of business so be it. I feel bad for their workers though.

It seems that American automakers have no business sense at all. I guess those at the top of these companies have made their millions and billions and just want to keep it and really don't care about anyone under them.

[KillTheMessenger]

There you go. Finally the Japanese are coming to the rescue. Again. And not a second too early. More like five years too late.

[mamacat]

Once again, a foreign automaker leads the way. Where would we be without the foreign owned auto plants on American soil? They contribute a lot to the economy and make themselves a lot of money by making cars the American people want, instead of cars Detroit wants to sell.

[VeggieCar]

So, Toyota can switch an SUV plant to a hybrid plant just like that! Yet GM closes their SUV plants and leaves 1000's jobless. Here in WI we gave GM a huge $$$$$$ taxpayer supported gift to keep production in Janesville... but GM SUV sales take a dip and they say sayonara . Didn't even consider re-tooling.

Why in the world should I buy a GM car? they screwed us over big time. it seems the American car companies can do nothing right. I guess more interested in short term profit than any kind of vision or innovation. Too bad, cuz now, NO profit. Toyota will continue kicking their butts.

Looking forward to purchasing an American made Prius soon.

[Mr Grey]

This is very good news. I wish it could be sooner.

[Egalitare]

Chrysler....tick,tick,tick,tick.....