Is Bob Herbert Missing Something About the California Toyota Plant?

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/shifting-gears/2010/03/16/bob-herbert-missing-something-about-california-toyota-plant

By Matthew DeBord
Posted Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 5:05pm

The New York Times’ Bob Herbert has taken Toyota (TM) to the woodshed not over the Great Recall or sudden unintended recall issues, but because he thinks the company is shafting California, a state that he argues has figured prominently in Toyota’s success:

Toyota is paying the state back with the foulest form of ingratitude.

The company is planning to shut down the assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., that makes Corollas and the Tacoma compact pickup. The plant closure will throw 4,700 experienced, highly skilled and dedicated employees onto the street during the worst job market since the Depression, and it will jeopardize nearly 20,000 other jobs around the state.

The Freemont plant is otherwise known as NUMMI and is something of a legend in carmaking circles. It was established in the 1980s by Toyota and General Motors so that the latter could learn lean manufacturing techniques and so the former could … well, get busy building cars in Cali.

The Herbert op-ed, righteous as it may be in its defense of the jobs of nearly 5,000 NUMMI workers, overlooks a significant piece of recent news: A startup California electric carmaker, Aurica Motors, wants to take over NUMMI, retool it to build electric vehicles, and retrain the work force to do the building. To achieve this, it needs government money and time—something like two years to fully convert the facility.

FULL 2 page story at link.

[wtbymark]

1. from what I saw on the news last night

that electric car company deal is not done, and they may bulldoze the entire plant (or most of it) and try to get different manufacturers, and/or retailers, to take over the space (not cars). (KTVU last night)