Recently, we did an article in which we predicted that the big losers in the Brazilian market, in perceptual terms, were Fiat, VW, Honda and Toyota. Well the numbers bore those predictions out. Read More >
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Category: Toyota
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Toyota ReviewsToyota Motor Co., the world’s largest automaker, has been producing cars for more than 70 years. It wasn’t until after World War II, however, that production started to pick up. Toyota went from making 8,500 cars a year in 1955 to 600,000 in 1965. Models like the Toyopet and Land Cruiser hit the United States in 1957. Today Toyota is among the leaders when it comes to hybrid technology. |
On Monday, the wraps will come off Volkswagen’s secretive NMS (New Midsize Sedan). Readers of Autobild in Germany already had first visual impressions of the car, we’ll know Monday whether Autobild was, well, given the right pictures. The car will be a bit longer than the Passat. It will be made especially for American tastes and wallets.
Wallets: The car will cost around $20,000, that’s $7,000 less than an entry model Passat. Tastes: “Inside, much cheaper plastic that in European vehicles will be used,” says Autobild. On Monday, we’ll also know what the car will be called, that’s the only thing that remained a secret so far. Some think it might be called Passat. Read More >
2010 was the best year ever for the auto industry in Brazil! Controversy as to the exact numbers aside (see comments here). The difference in numbers is due to whether or not you count trucks and other “heavy” commercial vehicles (like buses). Taking into consideration just cars, Bertel’s initial numbers were correct. Brazil grew in 2010 10% and not 11% (just cars, “light” trucks and vans). 361,197 vehicles is the official tally for December 2010 for a grand total of 3,515,120 (consolidating Brazil as the world’s fourth largest car market – in sales) on the year. That’s a whopping 30 percent better than December of last year. Reason to celebrate an extraordinary finish for a very good year considering all the difficulties, right? Well, well-known Brazilian car journo, Joel Leite, writing for Brazilian web giant UOL crashes the party. Read More >
Charlie writes:
Dear Steve & Sajeev, I am hoping you can give me some advice & feedback on a replacement for my currently daily driver that I will be purchasing some time next year. I am currently driving a 1995 Ford Taurus SHO with an automatic transmission (the transmission was not by choice, I would have preferred the manual…just couldn’t find one at the time I was looking) This is the fourth Taurus SHO I have owned (I have previously owned a 1989, 1994, & a 1997 also) My budget is somewhere between $10,000 – $15,000 (though I may be willing to push toward $18,000 for the right car.
The story of Dimitrios Biller has been one of the more colorful sideshows in last year’s media-scourging of Toyota, complete with a “book of secrets,” accusations of corporate criminality, counter-accusations of mental instability and a congressional pissing match. But with the Toyota media circus long gone, it now seems that l’affaire Biller was just another distraction from the mundane truth of the unintended acceleration scare. As the Detroit News reports, Biller and Toyota’s legal struggle is over… and Toyota, not Biller, is going to get paid.
Biller, a California attorney who worked at Toyota Motor Sales USA for four years, from 2003 to 2007, and Toyota had agreed to have their disputes settled by binding arbitration, which limits the grounds for appeal.
Biller had sued Toyota for defamation and fraud, while Toyota had sued him for violating confidentiality and severance agreements.
Gary Taylor, a retired judge serving as the arbitrator, concluded in a final award that Toyota should receive $2.5 million in damages from Biller for 10 disclosure violations, plus $100,000 in punitive damages.
“The evidence showed that Toyota suffered, and will continue to suffer, multiple harms from Mr. Biller’s contract breaches,” Judge Taylor wrote.
He also ordered Biller to return documents, including attorney-client documents, he’d taken from Toyota and allow the company to inspect his computers.
With TTAC bringing retail market share into its year-end sales analysis, we’re fascinated by the results of Consumer Reports’ Car Brand Perception Survey. The results show Toyota falling slightly but holding onto the top spot, and Ford making strides towards overtaking the Japanese Juggernaut. That trend at the top absolutely comports with our retail market share data for 2010, as does Honda’s less-dramatic slide in favor. CR also shows Chevy losing some ground in most of the survey’s rating areas, especially “Design/Style,” where the bowtie brand dropped out of the top five brands. Still, Chevy does surprisingly well in the CR survey, considering it lost more retail share than any other brand besides Toyota. Between TTAC’s year-end retail share numbers and CR’s brand perception survey, industry-watchers now have more ways than ever to track the performance of automotive brands in the minds of consumers, rather than as measured by sheer volume.
Only three automakers lost retail market share last year, as the market for new cars struggled back from the depths of “Carpocalypse.” Battered as it was by a recall scandal that engulfed most of the auto media coverage for the first half of the year, Toyota’s 1.2% dip came as little surprise. But with all the positive spin surrounding GM and Chrysler, the bailed-out automakers loss of 1.8% and .6% retail market share was a pretty huge disappointment. Ford, on the other hand, drew a huge distinction from its cross-town rivals, recording the second-largest growth in retail market share of all automakers in the US market, snagging an additional 1.2% of the market. Projecting 2010’s trends forward a year (a speculative exercise, no doubt) Ford would actually surpass GM in terms of retail market share, putting it second only to Toyota (and within spitting distance (.3%) of first place). As the bailed-out automakers lose ground in the battle for consumers (rather than volume), Ford makes a strong case for exempting itself from the “Detroit” pejorative: at least as far as consumer perceptions go, Ford has little in common with GM or Chrysler. Not that there aren’t still trouble spots…
Dying to have OnStar in our car, but don’t want to buy a GM car? No problem! At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, GM unveiled an add-OnStar that fits (nearly) any car. Read More >
On the surface, GM had a fairly passable 2010, as the newly-public automaker posted a 21.3% volume increase for its four core brands. In contrast to Toyota’s humbly grateful tone, GM’s VP of US Sales Don Johnson sounded a distinctly triumphal note, arguing
Our sales this year reflect the impact of GM’s new business model. The consistency of results that we achieved demonstrates the focus on our brands, dealers and customers, and how we compete aggressively for every sale, every day.
And on a superficial level, the argument certainly seems to ring true, as Buick (+51.9%), Cadillac (+34.7%), and GMC (+31.7%) were the three most-improved brands in the business last year in terms of volume. GM also delivered more vehicles than any other automaker last year, with 2,215,227 vehicles sold. Great success, end of story… right?
Wrong.
Toyota’s December sales [PDF here]dropped 5.5 percent compared to last December, capping a rough year for the largest foreign automaker in the US market. Toyota ended 2010 with a total sales volume of 1,763,595 units, down 6,552 from last year’s pre-recall performance. But despite holding volume basically flat and suffering the industry’s second-worst retail market share loss (at -1.2%), Toyota still finished the year with the highest retail market share of any automaker in the US market, at 17.3 percent according to our anonymous industry informant. Dig this: after the nastiest recall scandal since Ford’s Firestone debacle the Camry is still the best-selling car in the country, Lexus is still the top luxury brand, and Toyota still attracts more retail buyers than any other maker or brand. Would you have predicted that last February?
Imaginary acceleration or measurable inattention to quality aside, Toyota’s delightfully arrogant march to world domination continues with the expected introduction of a “wagon-like” Prius at next week’s Detroit Auto Show and a bold statement from the company’s VP of sales.
We will end the decade with Prius being the number one nameplate in the industry… [Camry] will be a close second, and that’s not because there will be a drop in Camry sales.
Toyota has had a problem lately: aging clientele. While some marketing firms will try to reinvigorate an aging brand with flashy new commercials and risqué advertising campaigns, Toyota decided to create a whole new brand in 2002 targeting Generation X and Y: Scion. Since the generations at the end of the alphabet are short on cash but long on youth, value pricing is the biggest draw for the Scion brand. Therefore it should be no surprise that the average age of Scion shoppers isn’t as low as Toyota could have hoped: old people like a bargain too.
Toyota, possibly more than any other automaker, epitomizes a major tradeoff inherent in mass-market success: mechanical and stylistic homogeneity. Subaru, on the other hand, traditionally occupies the other end of the spectrum, slinging mechanically unique but ultimately niche-oriented products. Since Toyota took a 16.5 percent stake in Subaru’s parent company Fuji Heavy Industries, observers have wondered how the relationship between two so different automakers would play out. And since Subaru had already cultivated a fiercely loyal following with its dedication to niche values, the outcome has largely been that Subaru fans have decried the perceived “Toyotafication” of Subaru. And now, if a new rumor from Motor Trend is anything to go by, the uproar is about to get a little bit louder.
The UAW today released its complete “Principles For Fair Union Elections” [full PDF here], the document that it wants every transplant auto manufacturer in America to sign ahead of its organizing campaign which kicks off later this month. With so-called “card check” legislation dead in congress, the UAW hopes to shame foreign automakers who manufacture vehicles in America to guarantee certain concessions to the union that, having helped kill off its Detroit “partners,” now owns large stakes in the bailed-out successors to GM and Chrysler.
In the past the UAW has failed to organize a number of transplant factories, including Nissan’s Tennessee plants and Toyota’s Kentucky factory, and the introduction of these principles ahead of the next organization attempt signal’s the UAW’s perspective that “manipulation” by management prevented UAW organization in transplant factories. If bosses from Nissan, Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes don’t sign onto these principles, they will be on the menu for the UAW’s new campaign… but are the principles worth agreeing to? Let’s take a look…
Volkswagen extended Martin Winterkorn’s CEO contract for another five years, not that anyone doubted that they would do it. The now 63 year old Winterkorn has job security through 2016. In 2016, he’ll be 68, and if Volkswagen hasn’t caught up with Toyota by then, that will be the perfect time to go into retirement. After all, surpassing Toyota is scheduled for 2018. Or maybe not … Read More >
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