Prius Family production finally coming to the US?

It reminds me of one of those sayings -"make it as simple as possible, but no simpler." I think that was Einstein.

There seems to be a drive by car makers to make things as cheap as possible, but they forget they need to work also. GM seems to have been adding quality and cost to its small cars - spark, sonic, and cruze, but the current malibu seems to still have the cheapness bug. When you try to cut parts cost too much you reduce quality.

Some of the changes with hybrids like electronic power steering and electronic airconditioning actually improve reliability and reduce maintenance.

What about parts count? That depends on what your goal is? If your goal is a 200hp or less efficient automatic transmission car, the engineering trade offs definitely seem in favor of a higher parts count and complexity hsd layout. The quality and reliability can be built in by the manufacturer despite the higher parts count, as can be seen with the 2004+ toyota and Fords. Toyota wasn't worrying about if a geo metro type car would have a cheaper tco.

From wired

 

^^ the guy's hunch is BS.
The Prius grew out of Toyota's worry that PNGV would obsolete them. Hybrid tech won out, but Toyota fielded many different designs before choosing hybrid as the biggest leap forward in fuel economy and emissions.

 

My Prius replaced a Honda built in Ohio, kept 23 years. My household still has a Subaru built in Indiana, kept 16 years so far. Neither has given me the slightest reason to doubt the quality of American workers.

American-built Toyota? Bring it on, I'll try it!

 

100% agree. I have a 2007 Honda Accord with 75,000, built in Ohio. I drove it off of the lot and have not been back to the dealer except for parts and supplies. Nothing but routine maintenance so far.

I would have no problem buying my next Prius built in the US if it happens.

 

Very misleading.

Prius' hybrid propulsion system includes transmission (eCVT), starter, alternator and part of the braking system (regen). HSD requires new parts but it also subtracted legacy parts.

To properly compare with Malibu, the entire car has to be compared.

 

I thought it was too early for that prius announcement, although I hope it happens eventually.

It seemed too early for a prius plant announcement. I hope we get that announcement for the gen IV US production next year. I'm not sure if this makes that more or less likely. It looks like Toyota is getting $146.5 in tax credits from Kentucky for the move/plant expansion. They already got Mississippi and the US to kick in for the Mississippi plant, and at least the US government is not likely to pay toyota twice for the same thing.

 

It will be awesome. I am going to participating in the CO2 E Drive event on Sunday in Manhattan.

 

Sign me up for a tour of either plant!

 

Parts costs, parts count, and complexity all went up in GM's eyes. You can see from their predictions and actions that they made the wrong choice. From the review bob pointed to, malibu also went electronic power steering, but got dinged on it because they did a bad job. The prius actually has more parts than a standard braking system. It has a stroke simulator to capture the brake pedal. It has an ecu to blend regen and friction braking. Those of us that bought early gen III's had bugs in this system. The added complexity does increase mpg and reduce wear on the mechanical parts.

What is more complicated and expensive? A six speed automatic transmission or a three speed automatic transmission? The six speed of course! How many new cars are built with three on the tree? Zero. You can test an automatic transmission as a unit, and adding gears is relatively simple. The parts likely to fail don't change much when you add more gears, nor does weight compared to the weight of the car. Parts count is fairly meaningless.

The same can be said for parts count on hsd. The thing is more complicated, but once you unit test you have a transmission (ecu, mg1,mg2, inverters, batteries, psd) that has many parts, but can be unit tested, and quality wrung out. Inverters, motors, and ecus don't really go bad, so the parts likely to fail again are pretty small. The battery is the big fud item for point of failure and cost in a hsd type transmission. Toyota seems to not have had issues, but honda has, so the fud will stick with us for a while.

The prius actually has more parts than a standard braking system. It has a stroke simulator to capture the brake pedal. It has an ecu to blend regen and friction braking. Those of us that bought early gen III's had bugs in this system.

 

IMHO it should have been long ago. The question is the toyota promise to build 3 million cars in Japan. Last year they could have done it without exports of the prius, but when they cancelled the prius in Mississippi it didn't look that way. If the japanese economy can chug enough to keep the 3 million cars, its a no brainer for toyota to build the prius in lower cost mississippi. Think of how much better they would have done in 2011, with missippi production exporting prii to japan when capacity was temporarily lost with the tsunami.

 

To be fair, they may be assembling in MS, but many parts will still be Japanese, so a large scale disruption of the homeland still stalls US production. (As it did for many 'American' cars.)

 

If you remember they also had problems when the floods hit thailand. The psd is now build in house by toyota, and they should be able to profitably make them in the US with the volume of prii and camries. That leaves some of the thai parts for electronics and the batteries. Toyota when they launched the rumor again last year said that the prius gen IV would be nimh, and they would look for lithium battery production in the US, but not nimh. The trick is after lessons of the tsunami to stock enough nimh in the US or to have an alternative lithium pack for the prius in case of supply disruption. Supply chain disruptions cause about a 7% drop in share holder value. If you can limit risks to just a few key parts you can stock higher levels of those in your inventory system.

Locallizing manufacturing not only reduces transportation costs, but also allows for a leaner production setting. Toyota used to be all about lean production, and the shorter chain between factory and dealer reduces excess inventory and discounting. The US has cheaper energy and labor. Put it all together and building prius in Japan and China (trade tensions are killing sales) but not the US makes no financial or logistical sense. Toyota ate the extra costs of the yen gyrations, and got hit on it in shareholders meetings. Toyota by not building locally assumes major currancy risks, and that hurt shareholder value in 2008-2012. It may help in 2013, but toyota is a car company, and should not be betting on weak yen. Production in america for american customers also reduces trade tensions, and there is no reason to produce in a higher cost country then ship to the number two buyer (number 1 in 2002-2008).

 

Hooray for helping Georgetown's plant grow even further and the Commonwealth! I invite everybody to come visit Kentucky. (I may be a little biased.)

 

I would be interested!

 

If you can make it for the Columbus Day holiday, I can make it. The three-day weekend makes everything possible.

There are also some friendly folks in Cincinnati who might sponsor a Fall picnic and BBQ:


We also had 'fire engineer' and a block-heater party. The three-day, Columbus Day is in the fall and the weather is variable but mostly nice . . . now that we have some global warming. <GRINS>

Here is the first one:

The first one was over the January, Martin Luther King holiday, it does get cool that time of year but the tour is indoors. Another, three-day weekend, it is easy for folks to come from longer distances.

Call the visitor's center and they can give you all the logistics. You do need to submit a list of names and addresses. If I remember correctly, we did the tour on Monday morning so folks could spend the rest of the day heading home.

There is a nearby, engineering college. I once thought about contacting them to see if they had any interests in sharing it with their students.

Bob Wilson

 

Thanks Danny for the tip. We all did have the same type hope. At least another American built car so no 2+ months waiting for a customer order to arrive.

Toyota could sell more Prius in the states if they pushed the production locally and also offered the 7 passenger version of the V here. Lots of soccer moms would love to turn in their 17~20 MPG minivans for something a little smaller and 2X the MPG.

 

The Prius doesn't have a 3 speed or a 6 speed automatic either. Another thing: how many cars have a "standard braking system" ? - very few if any at all.

So, whats' your point?

DBCassidy