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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. |
Japanese car manufacturers, reeling from a doubly whammy at home (down 9.3 percent) and in the U.S.A. (down 21.2 percent) are looking increasingly to growth markets such as China (up 45 percent) and India (up 18.7 percent.) Large players like Nissan, Honda and Toyota in China, and Suzuki in India, have been there for years. Now there is a virtual stampede. A collection of news from today’s Nikkei [sub]: Read More >
Remember how GM brags that they are the largest auto manufacturer in China? CAAM, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers says otherwise (via Gasgoo.) Here is the official CAAM list of the 10 largest passenger vehicle manufacturers in China, and their units sold in 2009:
Taken into account that VW makes their Chinese cars with two joint ventures, SVW and FAW-VW, Volkswagen’s combined total rises to 1,377,300. The imported VWs bring the number well above 1.4m . Read More >
Recent comments on today’s Japan’s C4C program post and 487 billion similar web posts since Al Gore invented the internet make it clear that there is a lingering misunderstanding about the import of US cars to Japan. Specifically, that Japan has managed to stave off a tsunami of Chevy Cavaliers and all the other wonderful American cars that the rest off the world has been snapping up by the imposition of certain restrictions, barriers or other obstacles. It’s way time to shed a bit of light on the Toyota Cavalier and this subject of great import. Read More >
In case you were wondering, Ed Whitacre’s assessment that the Volt will “make a margin” at a price point “in the low 30s” is the GM Chairman/CEO’s second big lie in as many weeks. Well, lie might be a bit harsh. Gross and willful misrepresentation is probably more accurate. GreenCarReports‘ John Voelcker got in touch with a GM spokesman who confirms what we all pretty much knew from the get go: GM “has not officially announced final Volt pricing, a price in the low 30’s after a $7,500 tax credit is in the range of possibilities.” In other words, we’re back to the same old $40k-ish number that GM execs have been throwing around for ages. Unless GM is talking about the electric-only (non-range-extended) Volt that Bob Lutz recently confirmed. But what about the margin thing?
Despite everything we tell our kids, sometimes procrastinating and prevaricating actually pays off. Like this photograph, for instance. I’ve been wanting to do a Rabbit/Golf CC focusing on its role in succeeding the Beetle ever since I started this series, but the cars I kept finding weren’t genuine early (’75-’76) versions. So I just kept pushing it off. Then one day on our daily walk: bingo! A superb red specimen, exactly like the first Golf I ever drove. I shot its profile first, than moved to shoot it from the front quarter (above), and just as I was about to push the trigger, I realized there was a red Beetle in the background. Kazaam! It doesn’t get better than this if you want to tell the story of how VW replaced the Beetle with the Golf, especially considering how much dithering and just plain luck played into its birth and existence. It also perfectly captures the day I stepped out of my ’64 Bug and drove a new ’75 Rabbit; I couldn’t have staged it better. Children: there are times when dithering and dumb luck trumps all the (business) plans in the world. Read More >
A strong team is only as good as its weakest link, particularly in the automotive industry. Treat your suppliers well and they’ll play fair by you. Try to screw them and they’ll collapse leaving you with serious production problems. Detroit (Chrysler in particular) had the worst reputation for treating their suppliers badly, but the Pentastar brand now claims to be trying to change all that.
Everybody is denying that Mazda’s Chinese joint venture with Ford is quickly coming to an end. The Nikkei is unfazed by the chorus of contradiction. Today’s edition of the Japanese paper sheds more light on the impending divorce in China: Mazda wants “to give itself more latitude to navigate the growing market as it sees fit.” That’s putting it mildly. Read More >
Last night, our U.K. correspondent Cammy Corrigan reported that Toyota is seriously in trouble in Europe. The findings were based on a report in just-auto.com that carried the news that in Europe, sales of Toyota branded vehicles had dropped 20 percent in 2009, while Lexus branded vehicles dropped 40 percent.
Alarming news.
Just a few days ago, Bloomberg reported: “Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and Daimler AG, the world’s top luxury-car makers, fell behind Toyota Motor Corp. in European deliveries in 2009 as government incentives failed to boost demand for their vehicles. BMW and Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz, dropped to eighth and ninth place in Europe, while Toyota, including the Lexus brand, rose to seventh, according to figures released today by the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.” Eh? Or more polite: Mou ichido ossyatte kudasai. Excuse me? Say what? Read More >
Despite what you think of Toyota, it’s a company you should respect. They brought reliability to cars when others couldn’t. They popularised lean manufacturing techniques that others are still trying to copy. And they introduced green technologies at a time when petrol was cheap and still made a success of it. In short, when Toyota put their mind to it, they can make a good success of just about anything… except for the European market. For some reason, Toyota cannot make in-roads in the European sales no matter how hard they try, and the latest set of data suggests that that trend is continuing.
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The eighties were the decade when GM destroyed itself. There were some memorable screw-ups in the seventies, but merely warm-ups to GM’s main act of self-mutilation, when it managed its biggest market share drop ever. There’s enough fodder in that horrible decade to keep our GMDS series going for way too long. But perhaps the saddest story is the new-for ’82 Camaro, because it promised so much, and yet couldn’t escape the death rattle that permeated GM. And I mean rattle in the most literal sense. Read More >
Toyota’s head start on hybrid technology is easily the most significant advantage any one automaker holds over any other. It’s next closest competitor in hybrid offerings is Honda which is facing serious challenges as its Prius competitor, the Insight, is off to an incredibly weak start. To capitalize on this advantage, Toyota plans to up annual production of its hybrids to one million units by 2011. Despite reports that Toyota is refocusing on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as a long-term option, Yoshihiko Tabei, chief analyst at Kazaka Securities believes:
For the foreseeable future, the focus of Toyota’s (low-emission car) strategy will be on hybrids, not electric or fuel-cell cars. Except for Honda, Toyota is facing little competition in hybrids and is set to put distance between itself and other automakers
China’s Geely has joined other manufacturers such as Chevrolet, Ford, Hyundai, Renault, Kia, and Toyota, and launched a production line in Russia. Geely opened a plant in Russia’s Caucasus republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, China’s state news agency Xinhua reports. Read More >
There has been a lot of, well, criticism, of Honda on these pages lately, including allegations that Honda had lost it. So far, more that fifty of the Best & Brightest offered advice on how to save the company from certain annihilation.
Today’s Nikkei says “domo arigato gozaimashita” for all the support, and runs a different story: “Honda Motor Co. has emerged from the economic turmoil at the head of the pack, thanks in good part to a nimble production network that can meet the latest consumer preferences at relatively low cost.” Here is why. Read More >
Toyota plans to roughly double its global production of hybrid vehicles to 1 million units in 2011, The Nikkei writes. Toyota alerted parts suppliers that it intends to roll out about 800,000 hybrids domestically in 2010, around 900,000 in 2011 and roughly 1.1 million in 2012. Read More >
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