NUMMI joint venture (1984)
General Motors and Toyota jointly ran a car plant in Fremont, California from 1984. GM got access to Toyota's production system. Toyota got a US manufacturing foothold ahead of expected import restrictions.
The Fremont plant went from GM's worst factory to one of its best in under two years. Toyota built Corollas and GM built Chevy Novas on the same line.
Toyota took the lessons home and built more US plants on its own. GM took 15 years to apply what it learned and shut its half of NUMMI in 2009.
NUMMI is the closest analogue for what Stellantis is now doing in reverse: the legacy automaker partners with a foreign rival to learn cheaper, faster production. The unresolved NUMMI question — who gains more from the deal — applies directly here.
