How 2010 Prius is made in Tsutsimi plant - Videos

Especially interesting for those soon-to-be 2010 Prius owners. Enjoy!

Correction.
"at Tsutsumi plant".
No sure about the ordering of the 1st and the last video since both have the same titles.

Great videos! I think div #7 is one of the final ones as they're doing some tests there and notice the doors are on the car? I've seen the final test areas at most auto plant tours I've been on. They do functional checks of all the car's systems and drive them on a dyno.

I took a tour of the Tsutsumi plant in late 2003 and saw 04 Priuses on the line. (I had no interest in buying at the time). FWIW, I've also been tours for Nissan (in Oppama, Japan), Mazda (in Hiroshima, Japan), NUMMI (GM/Toyota joint venture in Fremont, CA) and Ford.

I jumped on these videos quick figuring maybe this guy wasn't authorized fearing they might get yanked but I guess they were authorized judging by all the cameras I see in a bunch of videos.

When I went on the above tours, cameras weren't allowed and we certainly weren't allowed to get UNDER cars on the line. At NUMMI, they were so paranoid, we had to check in our cell (camera?) phones w/front desk before being allowed on the tour.

At the Toyota Kaikan exhibition hall (where one waits before a tour), they do have videos of the assembly process but that's from Toyota's own cameras. They don't let the general public take any pictures or video on the line.

A couple notes for those who've never worked at an auto plant or been on a tour:
- Notice no doors on most of the videos? The car bodies are all painted w/doors and all, but then the doors are removed and go on a rail system. They're reattached near the end (presumably matched w/the correct car) because the workers have to do so much work on the interior, the doors would just be in the way.
- The large sheets of paper attached to the hood (at least at Nissan) give all the info about that particular car's such as its options.
- I'm sure you noticed non-Priuses in some of the videos. The Tsutsumi plant builds a bunch of other cars on the same line(s). At Mazda and Toyota, I observed several different models going down the same line w/no particular pattern nor were there a batch of RHD or LHD cars.

I highly recommend Prius or car enthusiasts take a tour of any auto plant. They're pretty neat. Current info on getting a Toyota tour is at http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/about_toyota/facility/toyota_kaikan/. From the FAQ, you might not be lucky enough to tour Tsutsumi and might be sent to another plant.

super super cool!

There is more video at youtube
YouTube - fushikietsuro's Channel

Yeah, I noticed a press conference relating to the plant tour but err... I don't understand Japanese.

Interesting--thanks for sharing.

I like the "It's A Small World" music in the background in one vid.

Neat! Its amazing how much man power is involved. You almost expect only robots assembling cars today. I thought all Japanese assembly workers wore the same uniforms? Or is that only Honda.

Wouldn't it be cool to have a DVD of your car coming down the assembly line? I would buy that as an option.

Dan

nice videos thx

what i see at video
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZe2ExphyMU&feature=channel_page]YouTube - PRIUS TSUTSUMI ASSEMBLY Div[/ame]
is at 0:48 the HV line.. simply underneeth??

i dont to scape anything from the road against that thing??

I think the undertray gets fitted later

While working in the GM assembly plant in OKC during the 80's we had 45 seconds to install what we were to install, then there would be a new one there. After 10 hours and 600 units everything got old.

They did not play any music in the background, but we could have radios of our own. So there was all kinds of music noise and plant noise going on all day long.

It is interesting to take a tour of a plant.

Regarding the music, IIRC, the music ran while the line was going and would stop when if the line/a particular step was stopped for a particular reason. Yes, it was electronic and IIRC (I'm foggy on this), other Japanese manufacturers also had electronic sounding music. I think I heard it on the Nissan tour as well.

The posted videos pretty much show the area which would be designated as final assembly. There are many areas/steps before them.

None of the videos showed the paint shop nor were we allowed to go to the paint shop on any tours I've been on. That is probably mostly automated (I've seen videos of other plant tours showing paint shops). Also, none of the videos showed welding. I've seen robots doing welding at Nissan and NUMMI. At Nissan, the robots do most of the welding and humans do only the small portion the robots can't do it easily or at all.

I've seen some documentaries on car assembly plants and it looks like the US Hyundai plant that builds Sonatas and Santa Fes are a lot more automated than all of the plants I've toured. At Hyundai, even the installation of the dash assembly module is done by robot whereas I've seen it done manually at most/all plants I've toured.

i really like the arm the guy sits on in div#4!

Me too! It is really neat the way the arm and seat with the man on it can slide into the vehicle while moving with the assembly line.

The oil drain bolt shows clearly in the video of the undercarriage. You do not have to remove anything to get at the oil drain bolt. That is a bit of good news. I intend to change my own oil and was hoping that I would not have to take that undercarriage cover off. Toyota made it easy for anyone to change their own oil.

I am still anxious to see a picture of the oil filter. That should be located under the hood based on the fact it is a cartridge type.

Dan