Toyota Considers New California Plant For Prius Production November 2004

President Fujio Cho's meeting with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week may indicate Asia's largest carmaker will build gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles in the state, an analyst said.

"It would make sense and would be logical for Toyota to make hybrid vehicles at its factory in California," said Koji Endo, an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston in Tokyo. "Toyota's Prius is a profitable business for the automaker, and demand is surging."

That "factory in California" could be the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, jointly operated with General Motors. It is among the plants that could produce the hybrid in the U.S. However, putting a certainty on whether the cars would be manufactured in California is premature, said Toyota spokesman Steve Curtis.

"It's only being studied right now," he said. "We don't know yet when, where or if it will ever happen."

There also are plants in Long Beach and Baja California, Curtis said.

Toyota, the world's biggest maker of gasoline-electric vehicles, said in September that while it may

produce hybrid vehicles in North America, it isn't considering a new plant for that purpose. California, which buys more than half the Prius cars Toyota sells in the U.S., has lobbied the automaker to consider building hybrids in the state.

Toyota spokesman Shigeru Hayakawa declined to elaborate on the content of the meeting between Cho and Schwarzenegger or whether Toyota planned to build hybrids in California.

The Prius, first released in 1997 in Japan and owned by actors such as Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio, is so popular that people in the U.S. are waiting up to six months to get one. The automaker has been boosting overseas production to shield itself from currency fluctuations and to speed up delivery time to customers.

The NUMMI plant currently makes Corolla cars and Tacoma pickups.

SOURCE: San Mateo County Times

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