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January 26, 2005
California Toyota Plant Working Overtime to Get Hybrid Line
Now that Toyota's chief, Fuji Cho, has come out and said Toyota is definitely looking to build hybrid vehicles in the U.S., the competition is on to determine which of the plants will get the business.
Officials at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, California appear to have a head start, at least in hyping their own bid, according to the East Bay Business Times. They have already assembled a package of $130 million for road construction around the plant, and company, government and union types are all working together to push the sale.
Then there was Gov. Schwarzenegger's highly publicized visit to Tokyo where he personally pitched California as the logical place for hybrid manufacturing. Schwarzenegger told Toyota he would "move mountains for them" if they brought their hybrid business to NUMMI.
Another article, in the San Antonio Business Journal, suggests San Antonio may get some of that capacity, particularly if Toyota starts selling more truck and SUV hybrids.
The San Antonio plant, scheduled to open in 2006, is set to manufacture trucks, such as the Tundra. One of the plant boosters, Judge Nelson Wolff, believes hybrids will come to Texas:
"They are going to produce 150,000 Tundra trucks in San Antonio initially," says Wolff about the South Side assembly plant. "But they will have the capacity to produce 300,000 vehicles here. It doesn't have to be 300,000 Tundras."
Toyota is expected to announce their decision by June of 2005.
Posted by Frank at January 26, 2005 6:49 PM | Filed under Auto News
| Hybrid
| Toyota
