NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.) is a joint venture between Toyota and GM that was established in Fremont, California in 1984. It was the first automotive joint venture plant in the US. It also represents Toyota’s first American production facility. NUMMI currently employs roughly 5,500 people with 60% of its production for Toyota. It currently produces the Corolla, the Tacoma and the Pontiac Vibe (which is based on the Toyota Matrix).

GM has announced that it will discontinue its partnership with Toyota. Ongoing negotiations between the two companies ended with GMs decision, as part of its bankruptcy, to withdraw from the 25-year-old venture. Neither company has disclosed the financial terms of GM’s decision to turn the plant over to Toyota.

Effective this August, GM will discontinue production of the Pontiac Vibe as it abandons the Pontiac nameplate. With that, the joint venture between GM and Toyota will come to a close. The fate of the production facility is very unsettled at this point. Toyota had hoped to reach an agreement with GM and has declined to comment about any plans that it has for NUMMI.

Toyota has a rich history at the NUMMI facility, and it ranks with other Toyota plants as among the most productive automotive facilities in North America. It is a massive plant, spanning the same size as nearly 90 football fields. There had been talks until recently of a joint venture whereby a version of the Toyota Prius would be manufactured there as a GM product. Workers at NUMMI hope that Toyota will amend those plans to build the Prius at the plant.

It is, however, the only unionized Toyota plant in North America. It is also twice the average age of other Toyota facilities. Given the current economic situation- which has already strained Toyota’s bottom line- it is a difficult choice for Toyota.

As yet, there has been no public discussion of a third party entering into a joint venture at NUMMI, picking up where GM left off. Perhaps another company would like to manufacture a version of the Prius under their name. Only time will tell. In the meantime, nearly 5,500 employees will continue to work with an uncertain future.

Scion’s final limited-production vehicle for 2009, the xD Release Series 2.0 (xD RS 2.0), will be available at dealer showrooms later this month. It comes exclusively in Electric Wasabi green exterior paint and is also distinguished with unique interior modifications. The xD features a touch screen Pioneer Audio Visual Navigation (AVN) head unit with flash memory, voice recognition, and Bluetooth®. For media player flexibility, the AVN unit comes with USB, SD card, and iPod® connectivity. The Pioneer AVN head unit is also satellite radio, rear view camera and HD Radio® ready and will play iPod videos when the parking brake is engaged.

In addition, users can select from over 32,000 colors to customize the 5.8-inch high-resolution WVGA LCD touch-panel display. The driver can plan a roadtrip at home by downloading the freeware application AVIC Feeds to a computer, making a personalized destination directory and then transferring the data to the headunit using SD card or USB memory device.

Electric Wasabi accents the xD’s interior with four-in-one interior lights, and “Release Series 2.0” door sills illuminated with white back lighting. Silver accented seat fabric and individually numbered badging add to the vehicle’s uniqueness.

Release Series wheel covers also distinguish this limited production xD. A color-keyed rear spoiler will be available as an option.

Scion will only build 1,600 units of the xD RS 2.0. The xD RS 2.0 model will carry a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $1,270 over the base price of the xD. The base MSRP for the standard xD with a manual transmission is $14,650, while the standard xD with an automatic transmission model carries a MSRP of $15,450. The available Electric Wasabi spoiler has a MSRP of $285, not including installation.

The delivery, processing and handling (DPH) fee for all Scion models is $670 and is not included in the MSRP. DPH fee for vehicles distributed by Southeast Toyota (SET) and Gulf States Toyota (GST) may vary.

America’s best-selling car in 2008 is not made by the Big Three- or even by Toyota. It is made by Little Tikes, based out of Hudson, Ohio. The familiar red and yellow Cozy Coupe toy car sold over 457,000 units in 2008, edging out the Toyota Camry for the honor of best-selling passenger car in America.

Over the past three decades, more than 10 million Little Tikes Cozy Coupes have been sold, earning it a recent induction into the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland. In addition to the Cozy Coupe, Little Tikes also manufactures a police vehicle, a fire vehicle, a Princess Cozy Coupe and a pickup truck, among countless other toys.

What does this mean for the auto industry? Well, it shows that people are very much interested in “green” technology. The Cozy Coupe uses no gas and never needs to be plugged in, giving it the smallest carbon footprint of any mass-produced of car. It is also among the safest, with fewer highway fatalities than any other car in America.

Finally, it is considerably less expensive than other cars. Priced thousands less than the competition, the Cozy Coupe is able to maintain sales while the major car makers see drops in sales of 30% to 60% and more. Even as auto sales plummet, consumers continue to seek out Cozy Coupes.

Safe, efficient and reliable, the Cozy Coupe can teach a value lesson to all of the major auto makers. It’s what the people want.

In keeping with the new trend of sugar-coating sales reports, Toyota has announced that May sales “jumped 20.6% compared to April 2009.” This is a trend that all of the major auto makers have been following in an attempt to bury real figures beneath nonsense.

The problem with this type of reporting is that it reflects seasonal sales shifts rather than “the big jump in consumer confidence” that Toyota is claiming.

The real number- the one that auto makers have traditionally used until this economic collapse- represents a continued severe downturn in sales. When compared year-on-year, May 2009 saw a 38.4 % decline from May, 2008.

This actually reflects a trend toward worsening conditions. The year-on-year figures show consistent declines in sales- with declines getting more severe with each month. Figures show a 34.4% drop in January, a 37.3% drop in February, a 36.0% drop in March and a 41.9% drop in April. Notwithstanding seasonal figures, this reflects an unfavorable sales trend that the car makers, politicians and economists are hoping to bury under falsely rosy statistics.