Though an official announcement from Toyota has not been made, a report out of Japan says that the automaker will stop building cars at the Fremont, California, joint-venture NUMMI assembly plant. Toyota’s future at the California plant has been up in the air since former partner General Motors announced that it would not be building any cars at the plant.
Japan’s Asahi Shimbun says that Toyota has begun telling its suppliers that the plant will stop producing cars in March. Reportedly, Toyota will shift production of its Tacoma pickup to its underutilized San Antonio, Texas, assembly plant, which currently builds the full-size Tundra pickup, and it will increase capacity at its Cambridge, Ontario, Corolla assembly plant.
GM is pulling out of the NUMMI plant because its Pontiac Vibe, a rebadged Toyota Matrix , will cease production at the end of this month. The Matrix is assembled at Toyota ’s Cambridge assembly plant.
The plant is the only automotive assembly plant remaining in California and has long been considered important to Toyota because of the automaker’s dominating sales presence in the state.
