The last car rolled off of the NUMMI production line at 9:21 am local time on April 1. It was a red Toyota Corolla S that is believed to be destined for a museum in Japan.

The NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc.) plant was opened by GM in 1962 and closed in 1982. Toyota and GM reopened the plant in 1984 as a joint venture. As part of its restructuring following bankrupcy, GM pulled out of NUMMI in August, 2009.

NUMMI’s closure affects over 5,000 workers.

The future of the facility remains uncertain. Aurica Motors has announced that it would be interested in using the facility to produce electric cars. Though the announcement garnered much attention, it is generally considered unlikely since Aurica Motors is too small to support the NUMMI facility. In fact, Aurica has produced designs for an electric car but has yet to actually produce any vehicles. Many doubt that the company could even afford the $50 million annual electric bill for the NUMMI facility. Even the more established Tesla Motors turned down the NUMMI facility because it is “about 10 times the size of a facility Tesla would need.”

Also being considered is the possibility that the property might be used to build a new stadium for the Oakland Athletics baseball team.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 5:21 am and is filed under Community, Financial, Sales, Toyoland, Toyota, Vehicles in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.