Tough times:

Toyota Motor Corp. will wind down its 25-year-old joint venture with
General Motors Co., threatening the jobs of 4,700 workers at New
United Motor Manufacturing Inc., California's only major auto factory,
according to people familiar with the plan.

Toyota said Thursday that it would begin talks with Motors Liquidation
Co., the business responsible for selling GM assets that were not part
of the new GM that emerged from bankruptcy. Those assets include GM's
half of NUMMI.

"There is a likelihood we would not buy the rest of it," Yoshi Inaba,
Toyota's top North American executive, told reporters Thursday in
Troy.

http://www.freep.com/article/20090724/BUSINESS01/907240381/1014/business01/NUMMI
-venture-to-wind-down