Toyota's plunge into big pickups veers into a Texas-size ravine

0 Comments | USA TODAY, August, 2008 | by Chris Woodyard

SAN ANTONIO -- Until about three weeks ago, workers built pickups by the thousands here at the sprawling Toyota truck factory south of town. No longer.

Now, about 2,000 permanent employees draw a paycheck from a plant that doesn't produce anything. They perform maintenance, talk about ways to improve quality, and relearn tasks as basic as the best way to drive a bolt.

They're luckier than the plant's 200 temporary workers who work as needed and an army of employees at its parts suppliers, who have been furloughed.

Opened with great fanfare only a couple of years ago, the plant halted production on Aug. 8 after demand collapsed for its Tundra full-size pickups, amid sky-high fuel prices and free-falling home values. Production won't restart until at...