BBC NEWS | Toyota pulls plug on US factory — I have a lot of thoughts about this closing. In fact the Bay Area has had a bunch of car plants over the years and somehow Toyota was left holding the bag for what was originally the GM BOP (Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac) plant. It would have been closed years ago by GM, but they worked out a deal with Toyota to jointly run the plant. Then GM bails out leaving Toyota holding the bag. Ford had long since abandoned the Milpitas plant. California is not amenable for real factories. The land is too expensive, the taxes are too high. I cannot blame Toyota. But they are going to be blamed.

Toyota is pulling out of a production plant in the US it jointly owns with General Motors (GM), the first time it has abandoned a factory.

The world’s largest carmaker will stop production at the Fremont, California-based New United Motor Manufacturing plant in March 2010. GM announced earlier this year that it would withdraw from the venture.

Toyota said: “Over the mid to long-term, it just would not be economically viable to continue production.”