City, County of Toyota Truck Plant Don’t Own Toyota Trucks
Tim Esterdahl | Feb 28, 2012 | Comments 12
In the d’oh moment of the week category, we have the city of San Antonio,Texas and Bexar County, Texas who have hundreds of full-size trucks in their fleet, but none of them are Toyotas. Why is this odd? This area is home to Toyota Tundra and Tacoma production plant.
The San Antonio, Texas Toyota Manufacturing Plant is a large driver in the local economy employing about 2,300 people. Seems from this picture, the plant is a large piece of the economy.
Why wouldn’t the local government, buy “local”to fill their fleet needs. Their reason? “None of the local Toyota dealerships have submitted bids,” said Jorge Perez, San Antonio’s Director of Building and Equipment Services. He goes on to point out that the local government isn’t against Toyota and that their fleet has several Priuses in it.
The real “interesting” part is that local leaders praised the car company eight and a half years for bringing so many jobs to town. The plant was a $2.1 billion dollar investment and employs about 2,300 local, American employees according to Toyota.
They may well have a good reason that their are no Toyotas in their fleet (no dealers have bid), but really? Can you imagine the city of Detroit, Michigan that only drove around the Chinese F-150 look alike and no Chevy, Ford or Chrysler trucks? The local union would probably have a strike over this obvious stupidity.
Fascinating how much of the national dialogue is about buying American and supporting local business, yet the San Antonio and Bexar city leaders are obviously missing the point by not supporting their local plant.
With Toyota’s continual growth in the U.S. with new manufacturing plants and the growing Toyota exports leaving the U.S. for foreign markets (thanks to a weak dollar), it will be interesting to see if the national dialogue picks up on these facts or continues to blindly support the “Big 3.”
Related Posts:
Filed Under: Auto News
That’s a great question. I believe its an old perception issue. But this one makes no sense. Heck if Toyota were to pick up and move the plant then the concessions would come knockin on the door. Even the fed govt wont touch foreign. I could see back in the old days when foreign was strictly imported but today it doesn’t make much sense. I’m sure politics and “kick backs” play into fleet sales!
I can’t decide weather to say “what a shame” or “what a joke”.
you would think that they would mutually invest in each other. in reality it seems like, invest in our community, bring jobs, and infuse money into our economy, by the way, who are you?
I have seen a few tundras with the MS Dept of wildlife and fisheries and i have seen a few with APAC road crews. other than those few, i have not seen any tundra with state, local or federal municipalities.
I don’t find it that surprising. Whenever politicians get involved you can expect the outcome to make no sense at all!
Wow. It reminds me when I was in the Navy and Norfolk didn’t care for sailors. Imagine if the fleet moved out. It’s a win/win situation. Sadly the people of that county needs to look at their represenatives and rake them over the coals. Save money in buying local and Toyota company makes money for the employees.
I would really like to know if the government employees are for this option? Can you imagine the headache the officials would have if they were to purchase cars that were not sent out to bid?
wow, that plant is in the middle of nowhere. Is a little surprising since that plant is one of the main employers of jobs in san antonio. You would think some trucks would be in their fleet of vehicles over ford or gm or dodge? Wonder why not?
I’m actually glad they are not part of the fleet. Here’s why; fleet vehicles are bid and bought at low cost, this is good for the government but it really screws up the resale value. Once these vehicles are finished they go to auction and are sold for the price of scrap basically, the used car lots then buy these up and resale at a much lower price than what a personal seller would list at. This causes the entire market to rumble and the average resale value drops and causes drags everything else down. This flooding of the market takes it’s toll on both buyers and the general populations perception on “cheap” and “generic”. The second reason is that this bidding of fleet vehicles cause manufactors to build cheap and fast, stripping down the interior and painting everything a basic dull white or blue color, this makes the car unappealing and a bore to look at. I like seeing tundras that are fresh and different, unlike the big 3 big bore. The government owned G.M. And they should have kept it and build and bought back from itself only cheap stripped down “Government Motors”.
I agree Anonymous. Resale would go down.
Forgot to mention is that why the Chevy Volt is being discontinued? Maybe the Prez won’t get his volt since they can’t sell them.
I never thought about that, but its true. resale value would go down. furthermore, fleet vehicles seem to slowly start looking kinda, generic.
Beautiful looking ranch. I live in the Pacific Northwest, but I have a soft spot for Southwest environments.