GM Confirms It Will Kill Pontiac Vibe in August

Unfortunately for those of you who hoped to see a miracle and General Motors to save the Pontiac brand, or at least the Vibe model, it won't happen. The American manufacturer confirmed in a press statement today that the Vibe will be officially discontinued by the end of August 2009, with the NUMMI facility still in doubt on whether the company will indeed build a new car at the plant.

General Motors says no replacement for Vibe has been determined yet, but it is continuously talking with Toyota over the future of the New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated facility, hinting that a new joint product might be indeed pushed into mass-production.

A report that came out in late April stated that General Motors was seeking a new joint product to replace Pontiac Vibe and to be built at the NUMMI plant alongside Toyota's model.

"We're negotiating to see how best to utilize that facility going forward," Pontiac spokesman Jim Hopson said. "We're clearly not backing away from our partnership at NUMMI. There's no issue of us backing away from NUMMI."

The American and the Japanese manufacturers joined forces back in 1984 and started building cars together at the Fremont, California facility. Although the joint venture was initially supposed to supply the vehicles on a 50-50 schedule to both partners, the economic downturn and the falling market massively reduced GM's stake.

As for the Vibe, General Motors sold a total of 46,551 Pontiac Vibe models in 2008, which represents around 25 percent of the total sales figures recorded in 2007. The agreement was initially projected to supply between 100,000 and 120,000 cars to each Toyota and General Motors per year.