Toyota shutters new Prius plant

Car companies just can't catch a break these days. Thanks to the deepening recession, car sales are plummeting. While the Big Three lobby Congress for much-needed cash infusions, foreign car maker Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) announced it is slowing its production plans in the United States.

Toyota, which is experiencing its first decline in U.S. car sales in 13 years, today announced that it plans to delay indefinitely the opening of a nearly complete plant in Blue Springs, Miss., the first U.S. plant slated to produce the once uber-popular Toyota Prius.

In part because the slumping economy has driven average gas prices down more than 50 percent from a high above $4 a gallon in July, Prius sales slipped 48 percent last month compared to a year ago. Overall U.S. sales of Toyota cars and trucks were off almost 34 percent in November 2008 compared with the same period a year ago, according to the company.

The now-delayed $1.3 billion plant located in Blue Springs was originally planned to house manufacturing operations for Toyota's Highlander sport utility vehicle (SUV). Toyota shelved those plans in July when high gas prices mangled the SUV market. The company then made the decision to produce the Prius at the plant instead.

Plant construction is 90 percent complete and will be finished and the 100 employees already hired will not be laid off, the company says.