NEW YORK, Sept 26 (Reuters) - For the first time in 10 years, Toyota Motor Corp. plans to shut down a line at one of its old domestic plants and shift production to another facility to boost efficiency, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun's online Friday edition said.
Toyota will shift production of the Prius hybrid model from its Motomachi plant in Aichi Prefecture to another plant by the middle of next year when it goes through a complete make-over, the report said. The vehicle will be built in the Tsutsumi plant in Aichi Prefecture, it said.
Hybrid cars are eco-friendly cars powered by both gasoline engines and electric motors.
A spokesman for Toyota North America could not confirm the report, but said; "Much of our domestic consolidation efforts aimed at boosting efficiency have been completed. What has to be factored in is that the reported Motomachi plant (in Aichi) was set up in the 1950s and it is quite old."
He added that the top Japanese automaker has been beefing up production abroad.
The Nihon Keizai report said Toyota will turn the Motomachi plant into a base that provides technical assistance to overseas plants.