Toyota has not ruled out keeping its NUMMI joint venture with General Motors in Fremont, California, going on its own, after GM pulls out, to produce the Prius hybrid there.

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”We’ve upgraded the facilities during the past five to six years,” a senior official told Kyodo News. ”It would be physically possible to manufacture the Prius.”


”A shutdown is also an option, but it would be very challenging for Toyota, which has little experience in closing down big plants,” the official added.


The report said Toyota was still weighing both options for the 25-year-old joint venture plant, full name New United Motor Manufacturing Inc, after bankrupt GM recently announced withdrawal as part of its restructuring program.


But other officials have said it might be difficult to bring Prius production to NUMMI unless demand in the battered US auto market showed a strong recovery.

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Toyota is currently delaying the start of operations at a Mississippi plant which was scheduled to begin production of the petrol-electric hybrid from next year after earlier being switched from the original plan to build Highlander (Kluger) SUVs there. The automaker completed the building but had not yet equipped it to build vehicles.


Toyota officials in Japan last month told just-auto they would want supplier Panasonic‘s PEVE unit to produce the Prius battery packs locally if US production started as the heavy component would be expensive to ship from Japan.


NUMMI was a beachhead for Toyota manufacturing in the US at the height of balance- of-trade frictions between the US and Japanese auto industries. GM benefited from insights into the famed Toyota Production System introduced at the plant, the first in the US to utilise it.


Toyota has gone on to build several more US vehicle assembly plants, plus separate engine plants to supply them, and also operates two assembly plants in Canada and assembly facilities in Mexico.