GM is shutting down production of the Pontiac Vibe at the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) plant in California. GM has sold some car or another based on the Corolla ever since they jointly opened the plant with Toyota. GM doesn’t need them to produce another small car, as they’re looking at plants in Michigan, Wisconsin and Tennessee for that. That’s the first dot. And away we go!
Toyota spent $1.3 billion to build and man a new plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi. Originally, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Mississippi (TMMS) was set to construct Highlanders. And then the SUV market crashed. As gas prices rose, ToMoCo couldn’t import enough fuel-sipping Priora to satisfy demand. In July 2008, they announced a change in plan. The Hospitality State facility would be converted to Priora production. And then gas prices cratered. As did the entire US new car market, including the Prius. With all excess capacity in other factories, Toyota’s mothballed the half-built Mississippi factory.
Then Toyota released the 2010 Prius. Despite the depressed global new car market worldwide demand for the model is strong. Toyota needs more manufacturing capacity to meet that demand. It’ll take a while to finish the on-off-on Mississippi manufacturing plant. Dot two.
Third dot: The new Prius shares some parts (such as underbody frame) with the Corolla. In fact, they could be built at the same facility. Rumors are flying that Toyota will add the Prius to NUMMI’s repertoire. It makes sense. NUMMI has the capacity to build Priora; all the high-tech parts they’d need will come from Japan to the west coast. Toyota would cut shipping costs considerably by parts close to their west coast port of entry.
Now here’s where it gets interesting.
GM and Toyota still jointly own NUMMI. GM’s historically sold a Toyota-based small car since they started the venture. Will Toyota build another? We’ve href=”http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/toyota-to-gm-need-help-say-the-magic-word/”>reported that Toyota’s President Katsuaki Watanabe said, “If some talk about supporting GM comes up, we would like to consider it earnestly.”
It’s the same party line ToMoCo adopted back in ‘05, when GM first acknowledged that it was kinda maybe heading for disaster. In fact, as we reported at the time, GM CEO Rick Wagoner flew to Tokyo and met with Toyota’s CEO. Although the substance of those talks was never revealed, it was widely speculated that Wagoner was exploring the possibility of licensing Toyota’s hybrid technology (if only).
Dot four.
New CAFE regulations are full of loopholes, but Government Motors has to do something to at least appear to be satisfying their high mileage provisions. They need to fulfill the “greener” part of their short-lived “Leaner, Greener, Faster, Smarter” reinvention campaign.
GM’s going to build the Cruze, their own small car, in Lordstown Ohio and Son of Aveo somewhere (where the tax breaks are easy). But their dance card at the hybrid car cotillion is empty. The General’s pulling the plug on their light hybrids (VUE, Aura and Malibu) and put the PHEV drivetrain for the Saturn VUE on hold (the model’s going bye-bye). The Hail Mary plug-in hybrid Volt has been conspicuously absent from the news and press releases lately. So there’s no telling what’s going on there. GM needs hybrid help to appease its new government overlords post haste.
Final dot.
So . . . what are the chances of Toyota building a small hybrid vehicle for GM when they gear-up to start Prius production at NUMMI? Connecting all the dots shows it would fill an important niche for GM, give them sorely-needed green creds and would improve capacity utilization at NUMMI.
“No way” you say? That’s exactly what they said about the idea of GM and Toyota cooperating on anything before NUMMI opened a quarter century ago. Stranger things have happened. Given the state of the auto industry, anything’s possible now.
70 Comments on “Editorial: Connect the Dots: Could GM Get Their Own Version of the Prius?...”
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I had this exact same thought. It sounds like it is very possible. The 2011 Chevy Volt becomes a badge engineered Prius.
Frank’s logic makes complete sense. Interesting.
The 2011 Chevy Volt becomes a badge engineered Prius.
I wouldn’t stop laughing if this were the case. That would just undermine all of the nonsense hype behind the Volt, but it’s definitely something the “new” GM is capable of.
@maniceightball–
Neither would I, but really, it isn’t a bad move. I’m sure the dealers would love it if (when) gas gets to $4 again!
Interesting, and coldly logical. GM could do well with a NUMMI Prius-clone– it would be reasonably priced, American (and union) made, and if the sheetmetal is differentiated enough, most people wouldn’t be the wiser (let’s face it, no one here would be fooled, but we collectively are not representative of the car-buying public).
FWIW, I thought the deal with NUMMI is that GM owned the plant and signed the paychecks of the (UAW) employees, but Toyota managed the place.
Maybe, my info is that hybrid drive-train tech is going to be in EVERY Toyota model “any minute”. The big selling models will get it (Yaris, Corolla, Hilux/Tacoma) and at the entry level to boot.
How would you like a $15k stripper Corolla Hybrid?
The Prius would become an unnecessary extra model.
Handing GM a rebadge Prius when you consider every Toyota model has hyrbid wouldn’t impact at all. It would be the final vindication of the approach that is the Prius however.
Not a chance of this happening. Think about another product that already comes out of NUMMI that would fit well into the GM product lineup…
And how much is it going to drive up their prices, exactly? I doubt that.
The Prius would become an unnecessary extra model.
Well, for all the hate for the Prius, it is actually a fairly functional car. I imagine it would stick around, serving the same purpose as e.g. the Mazda5 or the 4-door Focus. Which is to say, it may replace the Matrix.
Of course, this is a fairly uninformed position on my part. I have no idea how Toyota’s marketing works.
I just don’t see that happening anytime soon. The Prius is Toyota’s pride and joy, their ace in the hole. It’s not just the drive-train that makes the Prius special, it’s the whole kit and kaboodle.
They’ve licensed the drive-train to Nissan for the hybrid Altima so maybe they could just give GM the power-train, but I don’t see Toyota allowing them to built anything remotely like the Prius in appearance.
The Corollas and Prisms and Matrixes and Vibes were all very similar in appearance, but Corollas and Matrixes were nothing special for Toyota.
And how much is it going to drive up their prices, exactly?
Isn’t that the challenge in any manufacturing? The technology is mature and Toyota have the components costs/assy under control, so perhaps they are ready to push that tech into volume at lower unit costs.
I’ll believe it when I see it. Look at the Civic Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid, and how much more expensive they are than their “normal” counterparts.
GM to revive Geo brand… resume selling Toyota products with peculiar off brand badging using fuel economy as selling point for econoboxmobiles.
paul_y : “if the sheetmetal is differentiated enough”
If only GM knew what that meant, or how to do it. I doubt GM is capable just going crazy with the design, and changing something that would actually differentiate their variants. I keep thinking of those Geo Corollas or whatever they were called which iirc were made at NUMMI. How distinguished was the Geo from the Toyota? Somebody among the B&B can probably discern one from the other, that person isn’t me.
You couldn’t tell the difference between a Geo Prizm and Toyota Corolla of similar vintage, but that didn’t stop the Prizm from costing less to buy–whether at the dealership or on the used market. Import snobbery, etc.
Look at the Civic Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid, and how much more expensive they are than their “normal” counterparts.
I agree, but years ago people thought an automatic transmission was a luxury and too expensive to implement into every car. Same for power steer, power windows etc etc etc.
Manufacturers find ways to add value while at the same time lowering costs.
At the moment, the Prius won’t be such a great CAFE booster for GM because of the harmonic mean computation. For example, if GM sells a 55 MPG vehicle and a 25 MPG vehicle the harmonic mean is still only 34.3 MPG (not 40 MPG). We’ll have to wait for the next “dot” to drop: CAFE changed to use an arithmetic mean. Until then I expect a more earnest attempt to make every vehicle qualify for light-truck status.
America isn’t the only market were cars are sold, it isn’t even the largest market. So maybe Toyota hybridizing their cars isn’t targeted at the USA.
PeteMoran
Maybe, my info is that hybrid drive-train tech is going to be in EVERY Toyota model “any minute”. The big selling models will get it (Yaris, Corolla, Hilux/Tacoma) and at the entry level to boot.
Toyota has stated that they’ll have a hybrid drivetrain in every model they sell by 2020.
@ Frank Williams
Toyota has stated that they’ll have a hybrid drivetrain in every model they sell by 2020.
Yup. I don’t think that makes my statement inconsistent however. I believe the 2020 number was hybrid “only” drive trains.
Makes sense to me. Toyota probably sells the cars to GM at cost, but they make out on the increase parts volume which reduces their overall cost structure for every unit.
Slap a GM badge on the puppy and it doesn’t steal from the Toyota brand.
Hope they figure something out between the two companies. Or at the minimum the plant keeps humming along at great enough capacity to at least maintain the current workforce.
Ken Elias: Think about another product that already comes out of NUMMI that would fit well into the GM product lineup…
Tacoma? Now I’m really confused…
“Could GM Get Their Own Version of the Prius?”
“Get?” Maybe.
Successfully make, market, and sell? No way.
And not just because I will NOT buy a socialist product.
Talk about scary. 500 volts behind or under my back-seat passengers’ asses AND a GM badge in front of them on the dashboard? After experiencing so many electrical problems in my various GM cars over the years, why the hell would I trust ‘em with high voltage?
Hm, thread derail: has the NUMMI venture been remotely successful for GM? They were originally supposed to learn how to manage plants in an efficient way, but that failed miserably, right? Or are GM’s plants managed decently and the problem is in their products?
At some point hybrid technology is likely to go from expensive option to standard equipment on almost everything. Some historical examples:
Electric self-starter
Heaters
Radios
Power Steering
Power Brakes
Tinted Glass
Automatic Transmission
Power door locks
Power windows
8-track->Cassette->CD->iPod player
Air conditioning
We will really know the game is over when Europeans start switching from diesel drivetrains to gas-electric hybrids. The actual manufacturing cost differential between diesel and gas-electric hybrid is probably collapsing.
Great Idea… a Prius that you have to take to the Chevy Dealership for service. What are they going to do, top off the Toyota Red coolant with Dex-Cool? Sounds like a total disaster. I hope to hell that Toyota does not let this happen.
On another note, I locked my keys in both my Toyota and my Chevy over the course of the last two weeks. Went to the Toyota Dealership for them to look up the key code and make me a key to get in the car. Grand Total $6.00 plus tax.
Did the same at the Chevy Dealership and they charged me $4.00 for the key and $20.00 to look up the key code. Over $25.00 OTD for the same thing!!! And they treated me like crap, as well. I was furious that they charged me $20.00 to get a key code from a company that our country has given $20,000,000,000.00 to so far and they had to rip me off personally as well. My Chevy truck will be the Last GM product ever to have my name on the title.
GM has waited too long to try to enter this market. Americans are getting tired of paying top-dollar for second-class automobiles. Instead of copying off of Toyota, why doesn’t GM work on innovation? Isn’t that the whole idea of competition?
John Horner: The actual manufacturing cost differential between diesel and gas-electric hybrid is probably collapsing.
It already did; the differential was already getting close, and Toyota reduced the 2010 Prius’ hybrid components substantially.
@Maniceightball
They actually learned a great deal about flexible manufacturing from NUMMI. The problem was that they were too arrogant to actually implement it. (if I recall correctly, the factory that built the first CTS was one of the first to integrate the technology from the ground up)
@driver29
That’s the whole point: GM has waited too long, and they’re out of options. The best strategy is to utilize pre-existing relationships to get up to speed, even if it means losing what little of their dignity is left. GM wins by getting the most mature hybrid tech on the market, and Toyota wins by getting all the good PR that they’re helping GM to recover.
Ed N. – Clue #2…
Shreveport produced 74,300 Colorado’s and Canyon’s in 2008 while NUMMI produced 70,800 Vibes…
The Vibe is going away. The H3 may go away – heck, it probably should as only 19,200 were built in 2008 in…Shreveport.
Badge-engineer a Prius (maybe even spend a few development dollars and make it a plug in hybrid), call it the Volt, and stop wasting tax dollars. I’m not totally convinced the Volt isn’t on track to end up as vaporware anyway.
They made the Corolla that people raved about in terms of reliability for years. Yes, with UAW labor. In the same plant.
Geo Prizm was the *same car* as the Toyota Corolla, made by the *same workers* in the same plant. How many “electrical problems” where on the Toyota Corolla or Tacoma? It isn’t like putting a bow tie on the front of a Prius is going to magically turn it into the 1983 Cavalier or something.
I think it goes beyond PR, btw. I really think Toyota does *not* want GM to collapse. Not only for the effect it wold have on suppliers, but on the economy as a whole, which would drive car sales down for everybody.
The Corollas and Prisms and Matrixes and Vibes were all very similar in appearance, but Corollas and Matrixes were nothing special for Toyota.
Actually, here in Flyover Country they are very special for Toyota: they have been the model of choice for former Big 2.8 drivers. People who usta drive whatever POSmobile from the Big 2.8 since they learned to drive moved over to these functional and reliable (and the new Matrix quite frankly is very nice on the inside and a helluva lot quieter than most CUVs I test drove last year) cars in droves. They got tired of their cars breaking down constantly or crapping out at 80K miles.
You now see tons of people tooling around in Corollas and Matrixes and until this year, Vibes.
Both cars really symbolize what the Big 2.8 pissed away here in “real” ‘Murka over the last dozen years. As such, they are quite special to Toyota. Maybe not to the enthusiast crowd here…
I don’t know if this is going to happen. I mean, GM wouldn’t do anything to undermine the Volt. They already have way too much invested into the Volt for it to fail.
OTOH, once Penske assumes ownership of Saturn and breaks from GM, I can see him going to Toyota and asking for a Saturn-badged Prius, if only for the green cred…
Cory02: “I’m not totally convinced the Volt isn’t on track to end up as vaporware anyway.”
+1, except they’ll keep a few around to shuttle the CEO of Gummint Motors to the Capitol building every now and again.
“They already have way too much invested into the Volt for it to fail.”
A re-badged Prius wouldn’t be a “failure” to them. At least they could spin it that way convincingly, at least to the government and non-enthusiast consumers.
It makes so much sense for both parties, I’d love to see this happen. The down side would be the proof that GM has once again put all of their eggs into a half-assed basket (Volt). It seems to me that the Volt’s bodywork could work with the Prius shape, and it would be a plug-in hybrid, just not in the same configuration that the Hail Mary Volt is designed. An added bonus would be that hybrid buyers generally aren’t “car people” from my experience, and wouldn’t know or care that the Volt (if this happens, of course) isn’t really a GM, giving the company some true green cred. If they did know, then they’d certainly be encouraged by its Toyota roots. I want this to happen.
“…..their dance card at the hybrid car cotillion is empty.”
Great line.
BDB, think of it this way. GM invested $1 billion in the R&D of the Volt, and pitched it to the eco crowd as proof that they changed their ways. If they give up now, the eco crowd will lynch GM and cite this as proof that they didn’t learn their lessons from Who Killed The Electric Car?
GM made their bed, now they have to sleep in it. I think that’s how the saying goes.
I really think Toyota does *not* want GM to collapse. Not only for the effect it wold have on suppliers, but on the economy as a whole, which would drive car sales down for everybody.
My bet is that Toyota doesn’t want whatever vacuum would be created to be filled by the Chinese. Toyota wants to grow organically, and not have to fight off foreign invaders that fight to win, just as Toyota itself did during its early days. Meeting that challenge would substantially raise Toyota’s costs, and they wouldn’t want that sort of exposure.
Toyota may be also looking at this as JVC did with the VCR. Instead of trying to own the format, as Sony did with Betamax, they’d probably prefer to have every hybrid sold bring a bit of cash their way.
The op-ed’s thesis here is pretty good. If there is a time for Toyota to move from being the hybrid monopolist to the mother of all hybrids, the time to switch strategies is coming up soon. Since the market is moving in that direction, they may as well profit from it.
Talk about scary. 500 volts behind or under my back-seat passengers’ asses AND a GM badge in front of them on the dashboard? After experiencing so many electrical problems in my various GM cars over the years, why the hell would I trust ‘em with high voltage?
The post discusses the possibility of a plant that now produces Corollas, Matrixes and Pontiac Vibes, will start producing Priuses, including models rebadged for GM to replace the departing Vibes in the contract for the jointly operated NUMMI plant.
You say that a GM badged car is bound to have problems.
Are you saying that GM’s supposed history of electrical problems is going to infect a car essentially designed and built by Toyota simply by putting a GM badge on the hood?
Go ahead and tell me that all of the hate towards GM is rational.
As I’ve been reading this thread, I’ve been musing about what Chevrolet will call this step-child…
I’ve decided that “Chevolt” is the best and most obvious answer…. It invokes Chevrolet, Volt, and Chevette too (although that may not be such a good thing :-)
You couldn’t tell the difference between a Geo Prizm and Toyota Corolla of similar vintage, but that didn’t stop the Prizm from costing less to buy–whether at the dealership or on the used market. Import snobbery, etc. .
You know, back in the mid 80’s I tried to buy one on exactly that theory. The GM salesman wouldn’t even show me the car. “Son, there ain’t no room to move on them small cars”.
They should have been a little cheaper than the Corolla, but they weren’t. Interestingly enough, I ended up with an Integra instead – a choice that made me very happy over the years.
Don’t you understand, Ronnie? A bow tie has magical qualities! Stick one on your Porsche, even, and it turns into a Chevette!!11! /snark
“hey should have been a little cheaper than the Corolla, but they weren’t. ”
Used, they were. Extremely good used buy. Its always good to profit from irrationality.
I still think it’s a brilliant way of quickly getting a hybrid to market. And it would beat Ford’s Hybrid to death- cheaper, thriftier, and American made. The government would be falling all over themselves crowing about how they turned the company that killed the EV-1 into a green-tech powerhouse.
It also buys time for the Volt program, which is clearly not ready for prime-time.
Go ahead and tell me that all of the hate towards GM is rational.
Two new families move into your neighborhood. One of them is a known philanthropist who is widely known for the good that he has done for the world. The other was just released on parole, and is a registered sex offender.
Only a moron would view these two households as being the same. Only an idiot or a truly Job-like figure would give each of them the same chance.
If the sex offender wants to make amends, then it’s not enough for him to do the same things as the Good Samaritan. The offender needs to do more, in order to get past his reputation. The extra effort required is part of the price that he has to pay for his crimes.
A brand is effectively the same thing as reputation. Just as reputations follow people, so brands follow their companies.
It is unreasonable to expect the average consumer to do a lot of research to know that a Vibe is basically the same as a Matrix. The Vibe carries all of the baggage of the brand attached to it, including all of the other Pontiacs, past and present, that have sucked.
Detroit Defenders don’t even think that they have poor reputations to worry about, let alone do the heavy lifting that is required to prove their worth. Just so long as there is a failure to take responsibility for their bad reputations, they can never, ever succeed. Let’s hope that Nissan comes in, fires just about everyone at the top, and starts from square one with an attitude to win, not to whine.
Pch101–
On how many reviews of the Hyundai Genesis do you hear a commenter say “sure its good or w/e, but what about the ‘86 Excel!? Total crapbox lolz! can’t trust Hyundai!”.
Instead you hear (I say this too, btw) “Wow, what a good car. Hyundai has come a long way since the Excel!”
The Koreans committed sins against quality and reliability in the past that were way, way worse than anything Detroit ever did. Yet they’re forgiven more easily in the automotive press, and by consumers.
On how many reviews of the Hyundai Genesis do you hear a commenter say “sure its good or w/e, but what about the ‘86 Excel!? Total crapbox lolz! can’t trust Hyundai!”.
Hyundai provides the blueprint for redeeming a fallen reputation. They don’t spend time whining about how Americans owe them something. Instead, they made conspicuous efforts to improve quality, spread the message that quality was a priority, and offered a warranty and attitude to match.
Just so long as Detroit feels entitled to make sales, it will fail. They need to earn the business.
The customer owes them nothing. Zero. Nada. The sooner that Detroit figures that out, the better their odds of recovery will become. But until they acknowledge their own failures instead of blaming everyone else for their mistakes, they will be destined to fail. If bankruptcy wasn’t enough of a wake-up call, I can’t imagine what else can go wrong to help them figure it out.
Are you saying that GM’s supposed history of electrical problems is going to infect a car essentially designed and built by Toyota simply by putting a GM badge on the hood?
Go ahead and tell me that all of the hate towards GM is rational.
You KNOW….. I would like to tell you that except that the world contains one fascinating and glaring example of the fact that IT CAN HAPPEN.
The Acura Legend – a car still famous for its quality and it’s evil twin : The Sterling….
“While dynamic characteristics and performance were broadly similar to the Acura Legend, due to the shared platform, core structure and power units; detail spring and damper changes gave each model its own unique feel….
Early build quality of the 800 was demonstrably poor as measured by J.D. Power. Customer satisfaction fell quickly and sales dropped from this initial high to less than 2,000 for 1991. The problems were varied with interior trim, electrics and paintwork problems, and corrosion in early models would also mar its reputation. This all contributed to the demise of Rover in the United States: the Sterling fell to the bottom of J.D. Power surveys there, while ironically its twin, the Japanese-built Acura Legend, was already found at the top in its first year”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterling_(car)
Pch–
GM has improved the Chevrolet lineup of cars a lot in the last decade. The crap boxes of the ’90s are gone. The only really awful car in their lineup is the Aveo, which is Korean. Sure, some of them are bland (Cobalt, Impala) but none of them are really, truly awful with the exception of the aforementioned Aveo. The Malibu, for example, has gone from rental car crap to class-leading example.
Same with Ford. The 2004 Taurus, in six years, has morphed into the 2010 Fusion, a quantum leap in quality.
I’ve got nothing for Chrysler, though. Still crap as far as their cars go.
Although nothing but speculation at this point, it would be perfectly logical if GM actually produces the Volt to have a Volt-badged, NUMMI-built, Prius-clone follow closely behind.
Or, should the whole Volt program collapse without producing a single car for production, plan ‘B’ would be to simply replace it with a Prius-clone.