Find Reviews by Make:
KTVU.com reports that an unspecified Japanese newspaper reports that Toyota has decided to shut down its Fremont, California, plant as of next March. New GM has already announced its decision to pull the plug on its share of the plant’s production, which last consisted of the Pontiac Vibe version of the Toyota Matrix. Speaking off the record, a U.S. Toyota spokesman told TTAC the writing’s been on the wall for some time. “NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing) was only profitable for a single year.” If this story pans out, production of the Tacoma pickup and Corolla sedan will move to ToMoCo’s mothballed—but brand spanking new—Mississippi factory. Which is, unlike NUMMI, a non-union shop. [Thanks to jmhm2003 for the link.]
15 Comments on “Wild Ass Rumor of the Day: NUMMI Dead by March...”
Read all comments
Whilst Toyota have their cash hoard, this is a good move.
Toyota don’t want to employ UAW members and only tolerated them because of GM. Now GM have gone, Toyota can treat them like a ginger-headed step child.
Toyota need to reduce capacity in the NA market and losing a plant in an expensive part of the United States is a perfect step in the right direction.
Since Toyota don’t like laying people off, Toyota could spin this as a “joint venture” which has ended and not like a cost cutting exercise (even though the end result is the same).
In short, what the talking point of this story is not whether Toyota are going to close NUMMI down, but why didn’t they do this sooner?
Even without the UAW in the picture logistics dooms NUMMI.
The location made sense once upon a time when Toyota dipped its toe into US manufacturing to test the waters. When most of the parts were sourced from Japan this made sense.
Today the factory is 2000+ miles from where every widget and sprocket is manufactured in the Midwest and Southern US. Being next door to a port and inter modal yard mitigates this somewhat but it is still a huge additional cost burden that competing plants don’t carry.
Toyota didn’t get to where they are by being stupid, much less insane.
Why would they continue exposing their corporate body to the virus of the UAW?
So of course with GM gone they’re closing NUMMI and thus keeping the UAW in quarantine from the rest of their facilities.
So long as GM / Ford / Chrysler are still saddled with the UAW and its direct costs, indirect costs (work rules) and slacker union mentality on the assembly line, Toyota and the other companies will maintain a big competitive advantage.
@ Tommy Boy “slacker union mentality on the assembly line” With all due respect sir,slacker mentality does not exsist anymore.
As far as the non union plants go. The UAW/CAW are barking at thier door. Toyota with thier new cost structering are ripe and ready for picking.
Toyota does not have a big competitive advantage
UAW/CAW consessions in the last 3 years have put labour cost very close to the transplants.
Make no mistake, Toyota is very aware of this fact.
>>@ Tommy Boy “slacker union mentality on the assembly line” With all due respect sir,slacker mentality does not exsist anymore.
Uh, I beg to differ. As one example (I don’t have the link handy, but I’m sure that it’s on YouTube by now), within the last year I saw the video of a local Detroit TV news story in which they trailed the UAW shop steward at a Ford transmission plant leaving at all hours on “union business” to go to bars, go home and take naps etc. They also caught him putting in for overtime for time he spent at a bowling tournament. In fact, he’d put in for something like 1,000 or 1,500 hours of “overtime” for the year!
In the last year or two I saw a similar one trailing UAW line workers taking 2-3 hour lunches, drinking beer at a bar (before they go back to work installing, e.g., brake systems. How reassuring)!
>>Toyota does not have a big competitive advantage
UAW/CAW consessions in the last 3 years have put labour cost very close to the transplants.
The hourly labor cost alone? Or the entire compensation package – health care, pensions, etc.?
And for existing people and across the board, or just for new hires?
And if the “Big Three” begin to recover – THANKS TO OUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS WHICH ALONE IS A REASON NOT TO PURCHASE ANY UAW ASSEMBLED VEHICLE LEST WE FURTHER REWARD THE BAILOUT BENEFICIARIES – does anyone believe that the UAW won’t go back to business as usual with strikes and sabotage in order to “get back” whatever “concessions” and “givebacks” … and then some?
No rational management would want the UAW on their premises. And I would bet that should the UAW get its greedy slacker nose under the transplant tents down South, in short order you’d see those plants moving offshore.
The formerly 500,000 member UAW kills jobs. If you want to support working people, kill the UAW. THe only people who benefit from it are the hacks on the union payrolls and slackers who rely on union protection to keep them from getting their sorry butts fired.
Excellent move. Give the jobs to people who work for a living instead of union flunkies who phone it in.
This is sad. Ten years ago my dad gave me and my wife a $3500 credit he had for some reason accumulated on a GM credit card (that is, he wasn’t planning to buy a GM car), and the only eligible GM car we were at all interested in owning – a 5-speed NUMMI-built Chevy Prizm – was luckily very suitable for us, and has continued to be. I still see first-generation products of that factory, more than 20 years old, still being driven – usually Chevy Novas rather than Corollas.
On a related topic: Both our cars were advertised barely or not at all – the last-generation Prizm and our ’03 Legacy wagon – and we were able to buy both at very good prices. (In the case of the Legacy, the advertising emphasis was of course on the Outback wagon instead.) Now that advertising is much less for all car lines, are there still any “sleepers” that can be had new at low cost and are fun, useful and durable? Or doesn’t advertising (or its lack) matter anymore, now that people are exposed to many more online sources of information (such as TTAC) than even a few years ago?
more and more it seems the UAW keeps falling on the sword – is the union really that bad and can it be saved (from itself)?
In short, what the talking point of this story is not whether Toyota are going to close NUMMI down, but why didn’t they do this sooner?
Because Toyota has a high (and arguably over-developed) sense of political sensitivities.
No brainer, eh?
Toyota is moving to the new factory in Mississippi so does this mean a net loss or net gain in jobs?
Tacoma and Corolla to move to Mississippi?
Where did you get that from?
I don’t think so.
More likely they will unbolt and move the Tacoma line to Texas and they will expand Baja California.
As for Corolla, I think they will increase the production in Canada.
Between Woodstock and Cambridge, Toyota could build about 340k Corolla/Matrix- and that’s without any overtime.
Does this mean Toyota will now have a Jobs Bank? Or will the UAW workers just get laid off and that’s it?
Hmmm…. it is right up the road from San Jose. I wonder if Tesla could eventually move in?
I wonder if that’s why Toyota was considering applying for a DOE loan to modify for production of Prius, as all of the (most) parts would come from Japan on that one and would make a great deal of sense. At the same time, it would make sense that Toyota would not want to take on the obligation of an older UAW workforce and the pension/health care liabilities as they would be included. Does anyone know how the UAW workers were affected by the VEBA trusts (i.e., were they GM employees outsourced to NUMMI or were they NUMMI employees)? Is there the possibility of closing NUMMI and then Toyota buying the plant from the joint venture and hiring a new work force (there are probably still alot of under-employeed defense/areospace workers, who would be willing to take a job with Toyota w/o the UAW, heck I have to imagine that when it comes down to it, the current workers would ditch the UAW to keep thier jobs, I mean industry isn’t really booming in california(or anywhere else) right now)