Toyota might supply a version of its Prius hybrid to General Motors, two people familiar with the plan told Bloomberg News.
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Toyota president Akio Toyoda and GM’s CEO Fritz Henderson will meet in August to discuss a plan to sell a GM-badged car based on the Prius as one option for the carmakers’ jointly owned NUMMI factory in California, the news agency reported.
GM announced recently it would end assembly of the Pontiac Vibe there in August, earlier than planned, and last night said it would also shed its stake in the factory as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.
The venture spanned 25 years. Toyota has said the GM decision makes the situation difficult in the current economic climate and it is considering a number of alternatives for the plant.
Bloomberg sources said a GM version of the Prius might help the US carmaker win customers while Toyota is considering building the Prius at the well established California plant after shelving plans to make the hybrid in a now-mothballed Mississippi that has not yet been kitted out with production equipment.
The plant, the only unionised Toyota facility in North America, currently makes the Tacoma truck and Corolla sedan for Toyota, alongside the Vibe which goes out of production next month.
Bloomberg noted that GM currently has eight hybrid models, two of which are Saturns, a brand the company is selling to Penske Automotive Group. Of the other six, only one, the Chevrolet Malibu, is a car rather than a truck.
The plug-in electric Chevrolet Volt will be launched next year and GM plans to have 14 hybrids on sale by 2012.
Toyota and GM have shared the Fremont, California, plant since 1984. While GM owns half of the plant, Toyota models accounted for 76% of output this year to 27 June 27, according to Automotive News.
The factory has a capacity of 420,000 cars and trucks annually and employs about 5,400 people.
