Unlike its competitors, Toyota Camry's price tag has remained relatively unchanged, even with most prices on everything experiencing inflation. Here is the real kicker; Toyota has successfully lowered the price on the Camry by about two percent, year over year.
You might be wondering how this is possible in this economy. If you think about it long an hard, you may still not be able to come up with the answer, which of course is Robots. Specifically, they've reprogrammed out-of-commission assembly bots from its former joint-venture plant in California (New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. or NUMMI) to help construct the new Toyota Camry. Now that is thinking outside the box. We think so anyway, especially when it boils down to passing on savings to the consumer.
In regards to Toyota Motor Corp.'s decision to bring the robots out of retirement, Steve St. Angeleo, Executive Vice President, North American Manufacturing and Engineering, Toyota said, "A lot of the tooling is new, however, the equipment isn't. We used a lot of used equipment...[from NUMMI]."1
Toyota doesn't take for granted the fact that they can utilize the NUMI robots. While Toyota can claim bragging rights to being the best-selling car in America, experts question if this would still be the case, given a higher cost.
"They couldn't have tolerated a price increase for [Toyota] Camry in this market," explains Jim Hall, 2953 Analytics Inc. "We're basically still in a recession."2
Want more information on the new 2012 Toyota Camry, coming soon to R & H Toyota located at 9801 Reisterstown Road Owings Mills, MD 21117? Contact us today. Or, drop in and visit us in person. And, remember to stay tuned for more Toyota news, right here, on the R & H Toyota's blog.
Source: 1,2,/sup> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-14/toyota-relied-on-old-robots-new-tooling-to-cut-u-s-camry-price.html
