Fiat, the Italian automaker which owns a 20% controlling interest in the new Chrysler, announced an equal partnership, joint venture with Chinese automaker Guangzhou Automobile Group. The companies announced that they would build a new 173 acre plant in Hunan province with production scheduled to begin at the end of 2011. The plant will cost more than $550 million and will have the ability to manufacture 140,000 cars and 220,000 engines per year after the first phase is completed. Upon completion of all phases production would eventually increase to 250,000 cars and 300,000 fuel-efficient, low emission engines per year. Guangzhou Automobile Group which already has similar joint ventures with Honda and Toyota, stated that it had delivered more than 530,000 vehicles last year.
Category Archives: Toyota
Automotive Sales For June 2009
While sales in June fell by 33% for General Motors, and 42% for Chrysler, Ford Motor Company announced that its sales were only down 11% from June, 2008. Ford also outsold Toyota and is regaining market share for the third consecutive month, and is discounting its vehicles less than General Motors and Chrysler. Ford also stated that slow demand in the West and Southwest where the housing market has taken the worst beating, has dragged down the company’s overall sales, while sales in more than half of the remaining states were on a par or slightly greater than last year’s. Further adding to General Motors and Chrysler’s woes were that plant closings sharply reduced sales to car rental companies and other business customers. On the bright side, however, their bankruptcies have not deterred sales to consumers as much as was expected
Asian automakers have also felt the impact of the economic slowdown with declines in sales of 32% for Toyota and 23% for Nissan. Overall automotive sales in the United States fell by 28% compared to June 2008, which though still a decline is the smallest decline since September of last year. Average annual sales throughout the United States for the last decade were about 17 million units but took a nosedive starting the second half of 2008. Thus far in 2009 slightly under 5 million vehicles have been sold, a decrease of approximately 37%.
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GM Ends Joint Venture with Toyota
After 25 years General Motors has ended its joint with Toyota at its plant in Fremont, California. The project, known as the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or Nummi, has manufactured more than 6 million vehicles, including the Corolla sedan and Tacoma pickup truck for Toyota, and the Pontiac Vibe for GM. GM will no longer be producing Pontiacs next year and intends to discontinue the Vibe in August. GM also announced that it did not intend to continue utilizing the Fremont facility after it emerges from bankruptcy, which is expected to occur in late summer, 2009. The venture allowed Toyota to apply its system in the United States and enabled GM to learn from the Toyota manufacturing process. The plant, which has over 4,700 employees, and has more than 5,000,000 square feet of assembly space is the last auto plant operating in California. Toyota has not yet decided whether it will continue to operate in the Fremont facility, and has rejected reports that it was considering building the Prius in Fremont. Both the Corolla and the Tacoma are being assembled and other facilities, the Corolla in Canada and the Tacoma in Mexico.
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Buying American? Or Are You?
Although 8.5 million cars and light trucks were assembled in the United States last year, the traditional Big Three automakers, Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors, only accounted for about 5 million of those. The remaining 3 million were built in the United States in American plants for manufacturers such as Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Honda, and BMW. Making it more confusing is that the Big Three also have assembly plants in Canada and Mexico. Thus, American car buyers are faced with the question of whether a car manufactured by a company with its headquarters in Japan, but which has been built in Ohio, as is the Honda Accord, is more American than is a car from an American company headquartered in Michigan selling cars manufactured in Mexico, as is, for example, the Ford Fusion.
Toyota is the leading producer of vehicles built in the United States beating out Chrysler last year by a slight margin. In fact, Honda has been building its vehicles in the United States since as early as 1982 in its plant in Marysville Ohio. And in the 80s and 90s Canadian and Mexican plants were already turning out cars for the Big Three American manufacturers.
Therefore, what is euphemistically called “domestic content,” may not be domestic at all. Domestic content may include parts made in Canada and Mexico. However, while American auto workers are assembling vehicles in American plants for foreign manufacturers, labor is excluded from the determination of what is American-built. Thus, foreign auto manufacturers with assembly plants in the United States cannot factor in the value of American labor, nor be credited for it.
To further confuse matters while, for example, Honda builds its engines in its plant in Ohio for the Acura RTX, the country of origin is still listed as Japan. The reason is that one expensive part, the turbocharger, is actually manufactured and imported from Japan although installed by workers in the Ohio plant.
Clearly, determining whether a car is American-built is confusing and oftentimes misleading.
GM to Cease Production of Pontiac Vibe in California
According to the Los Angeles Times, GM will stop producing the Pontiac Vibe in September of this year. This is part of General Motors plan to eliminate the Pontiac brand completely. They have been producing the Vibe at NUMMI, a plant owned jointly by General Motors and Toyota Motor Corp. in Fremont, California.
Best City MPG
According to the latest findings from Consumer Reports the Toyota Prius, Smart car, Toyota Camry Hybrid, Nissan Altima Hybrid, and the Honda Civic Hybrid are the cars that deliver in best city MPG. These cars use the least amount of gas in stop and go driving.
Best Cars Under $20,000
According to Consumer Reports the best cars to buy under $20,000.00 are the Honda Fit, Hyundai Elantra SE, Mazda3 i Sport, Pontiac Vibe 2.4L, Scion tC, Scion xB, Scion xD, Ford Focus SES and Toyota Corolla LE. All models earned very good or better scores in Consumer Report’s tests.
