Official: Toyota investing $200M in Southern manufacturing

Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, Toyota

Over the past two years, Toyota has invested more than $2 billion at its North American production facilities, and it apparently doesn’t plan on stopping there. To keep up with recent strong sales, Toyota is investing an additional $200 million at its engine plants in the Southern US to increase production capacity of its V6 engines.

The bulk of this money ($150 million) will go to expand Toyota’s engine plant in Huntsville, AL, which is currently responsible for supplying engines – four-cylinder, V6 and V8 – to eight of Toyota’s 12 domestically produced vehicles. That includes the best-selling Toyota Camry (shown above).

Toyota didn’t say exactly what improvements are being made to the plant, but this follows last year’s $80 million investment in the plant that is set to be completed by next year raising the engine capacity to 750,000 annual units including 362,000 V6s. The remaining $50 million will go to the casting plants of Toyota-owned Bodine Aluminum in Missouri and Tennessee, which supply engine blocks and cylinder heads to the Huntsville engine plant as well as others in Kentucky and West Virginia. Scroll down below for the official press release.

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Toyota investing $200M in Southern manufacturing originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 23 Jun 2013 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GM to hold open house tours of all 54 manufacturing facilities

Filed under: Etc., GM

General MotorsGeneral Motors is giving the public a glimpse into the company’s inner workings though a series of factory tours. Each of the 54 GM manufacturing facilities in the United States are set to host open-house events in order to give everyone a better idea of exactly what goes on in the newly-public automaker’s plants. Each of the facilities will choose a date for their respective event and invite their local community inside by the end of 2011.

GM say that it wants to underscore the fact that it employees thousands of workers in locations across the country, and that since 2009, the automaker has created or saved 7,900 jobs in 21 localities around the U.S. If you live in close proximity to a GM plant, keep your ear to the ground for the open-house time and date in your area.

A similar effort is underway for The General’s Canadian plants. Hit the jump for the full press release.

[Source: GM]

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GM to hold open house tours of all 54 manufacturing facilities originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Study: The Toyota Prius has a dirty side after all – manufacturing

Filed under: Hybrid, Sedan, Japan, Plants/Manufacturing, Toyota

2010 Toyota Prius

2010 Toyota Prius – Click above for high-res image gallery

There are plenty of revelations in the annual sustainability report recently released by Toyota. By and large, the company is as ecologically-minded as a multi-national corporation can be, but as we’ve touched on before, not everything is as squeaky clean as it could be. The Toyota Prius has earned itself as one of the greenest vehicles on the road – a perception that the company’s report confirmed by detailing the fact that over its lifetime, the Prius is likely to emit much less carbon dioxide than other comparable vehicles.

Unfortunately, that truth is offset a bit by the fact that the vehicle performs marginally worse than average when it comes to the emissions generated to build hybrid. Specifically, Toyota cranks out extra nonmethane hydrocarbons and particulate matter, thanks specifically to the manufacturing of the car’s electric motor and battery pack. Those two pieces require larger amounts of energy and materials, snagging the Prius lower than average ratings across all five manufacturing emissions categories.

Gallery: Review: 2010 Toyota Prius

Photos by Sam Abuelsamid / Copyright (C)2009 AOL
[Source: Automotive News]

Study: The Toyota Prius has a dirty side after all – manufacturing originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 19:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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