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The Detroit Free Press reports, almost giddily, that GM will almost certainly replace Toyota as the world’s largest automaker by volume this year, as tsunami-related production problems will continue to plague the Japanese automaker. The graph above, by IHS Global Insight [via AutoObserver], shows that the impacts of the tsunami will continue to be felt well into next year, and that Japanese production will likely fall permanently by around 15%. Toyota’s full-year production could be cut by around 20%, possibly bumping the automaker to the third position in the global volume race, after GM and VW.
10 Comments on “What’s Wrong With This Picture: Japan’s Production Problem Edition...”
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“DETROIT — General Motors is almost certain to claim the title of world’s biggest automaker this year, retaking the top spot from Toyota, which has been hurt by production problems since the Japanese earthquake and still can’t escape the shadow of major safety recalls.”
Instead of commenting the The Detroit Frrep is giddy, why don’t you say “we at TTAC sadly..”? Just a thought.
The Freep is not behind the ball.
We at TTAC had reported the story (emotionless) before the Freep.
The Freep says that “already the crisis has cost the company production of 260,000 vehicles.” That was beginning of April. No official numbers are available, but a good guess would be closer to 500,000
On March 10, a day before the quake, we wrote matter of factly that “General Motors, also powered by China, is likely to unseat Toyota this year as the world’s largest automaker.”
This was clear after Toyota had given a growth target of 2% and after GM had published its growth numbers.
We simply tell it how it is.
not that GM deserves any credit for reclaiming the title.
Bertel – you do generally tell it like it is, but that is undermined by subjective terms like “giddy”. The quote was placed in the first comment and it didn’t seem like giddy was apt. So why not just cut out extraneous, subjective comments like that?
@Mike
Quite simply the FreeP is ‘giddy’. The truth of the matter is that GM will claim this crown due to Toyota’s adverse production shortfall due to the quake and tsunami, not due to a ‘better GM’ as the FreeP puts in bold. They even manage to enter a recall quip in there of Toyotas that ‘accelerate without warning’.
I think its fairly clear to what readership that the Detroit Free Press caters to, and it should be expected what perspective they report from. There is no illusion of journalistic fairness, even for a 180 year newspaper. Like TTAC they have their own biases and perspectives that they don’t hide it. It doesn’t need to be fair, but at least its honest.
Personally, I find more atrocious the Detroit press mafia at Jalopnik like Justin Hyde and the Detroit crew like Paul Eisenstein of Autoblog that intentionally disguise their biases and make a pseudo-assemblance of journalism. Neither fair nor honest.
Maybe, temporarily they might gain, but if the quality isn’t these drivers will trade their Chevy’s in for Toyotas and GM is right back where they were, on the down side. Even worse off because more folks are soured on the product.
A sale is a sale, and price matter. A supply constrained Toyota has less pricing power of their rivals. If we take a purely statistical view of retention, GM should keep at least half of the customers that they took away from Toyota. Though the reality is that Toyota will likely lose most of their customers to Ford and Hyundai.
This quake and tsunami will impact Toyota severely. However, this ‘world’s largest automaker’ is a pretty worthless title, especially as a lot of these sales (particularly from GM and VW) are from the Chinese market which these makers use very dubious mathematics to calculate their sales numbers.
Completely agree that Toyota will lose most of their US customers (there are other markets in the world) to Hyundai and Ford. Also that those companies will retain a good proportion of the conquest sales.
Glad you admit TTAC has it bias, which it does not readily admit.
Also agree that the title of world’s largest manufacturer is worthless.
Regaining the number one position because your competitor lost production due to a natural disaster is hardly a reason to celebrate…even for GM…
I don’t agree at all that Toyota will lose most of their US customers.
I believe brand loyalty still counts for something.
The doomsayers also predicted this after Toyota’s previous, very considerable quality troubles.
I believe that 40 years of goodwill won’t simply evaporate, but will erode gradually.
If loyal customers simply can’t get cars at all, that’s a different story.