 |
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. |
We thought the Lexus HS250h would be a cynical rebadge of the Prius with a little more power. We were wrong. The HS was marginally unique enough, but then ToMoCo went and cynically reabdged it as a Toyota and called it the Sai. Sigh. It hasn’t been confirmed for the US yet, but if it is, there’s not much breathing room between the $22k Prius and the $26k Camry Hybrid. Nor would there be much reason left to buy an HS.
Make no mistake: GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy horrendously over-dealered. GM was carrying more than twice Toyota’s 1500 dealers (with a lot less than twice the market share). The automakers’ needed to cut their franchise network down to size for reasons elucidated here on numerous occasions. The fact that the culled dealers are dogging the federally-subsidized carmakers for cash—well, you, really—is neither here nor there. It’s on YouTube! In their own words . . .
Before we jump into this one, it’s important to lay out a few caveats. The first is that, in general, TTAC doesn’t do recalls. It’s impossible to cover them with any fairness, and most of the time they’re inconsequential or hard to verify. The second is that TTAC really, really doesn’t do sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) scares. If someone tells you their throttle sticks wide open at precisely the same time as their brakes fail, they’re either covering for their own incompetence or looking for a buck. Period. Now, the proliferation of computer controls may have introduced a greater possibility of simultaneous system failures than existed on old, mechanically-actuated brakes and throttles. In fact, the recent rash of SUA complaints involving Toyota and Lexus models had me wondering if ghosts in the machine were rendering the time-tested SUA debunking test obsolete. No such luck. It turns out it’s the floormats, stupid. Toyota initially dismissed all SUA claims, but now Bloomberg reports they’re recalling floor mats on 3.8m Toyota and Lexus models for causing the gas pedal to stick.
How about a backers for an independent British sportscar marque? Kuwait’s national Investment Dar, which paid $925m for a 51 percent stake in Aston Martin two and a half years ago, has secured a claims freeze from creditors, reports The Guardian. This, nearly seven months after the fund got into trouble and offered its Aston stake up for biding, and our Aston-buyer-rumor-meter is still registering a fat goose egg. $393m of Dar’s stake was financed with a Shariah-compliant loan, and the Dar has been forced to publicly ask its creditors to chill. The finance guys will come to some kind of musawamah, but it’s Aston I’m worried about. McLaren is making a less indulgently heritage-dependent bid to be come the British sportscar firm, while Aston is… languishing on the market, firing workers, being turned down by celebs, rebadging Toyotas and generally cheapening the brand. Where do you go from there?
No car is perfect. Regardless of the myth of brands, a Toyota can get engine sludge. A Honda transmission can go south for eternity. Even the vault that is an old Mercedes will need to be lined with the insulation of greenbacks from time to tomb. There are definitely tendencies when it comes to cars. But no absolutes. Nada. Like the game of baseball, the winners are threshed out through experience. What makes the real difference in all that time?
The Los Angeles Times reports Toyota has requested $2m in state training funds for workers at its NUMMI plant. The only problem? Toyota has already announced plans to close the Fremont, California, factory. The State of California’s Employment Training Panel had previously agreed to pay back the $2m Toyota spent for training at NUMMI, but since then Toyota and GM made the decision to end their joint venture at NUMMI and end production there. Toyota’s argument was summarized in a statement by NUMMI saying, “These skills have made our team members greater contributors to NUMMI and will make them more attractive to prospective employers when they conclude their employment here in April 2010.” But don’t count on that argument gaining much traction.
Geography aside, Eugene, Oregon, is about as far away from Detroit as you can get. The biggest industry in that sleepy town on the banks of the Willamette is education, not auto manufacturing. You’re more likely to see dreadlocks at a typical Eugene business than a hard hat. In fact, perhaps the only thing Eugene and Detroit have in common is a decaying urban core, although in Eugene that core is spanned by about six city blocks. With today’s launch of the Arcimoto Pulse, however, Eugene took what local politicians describe as a first step towards challenging to Detroit’s automaking dominance. And if they are to be believed, and Arcimoto’s three-wheeled Pulse EV is the future of the American mobility, suffice it to say that nobody saw it coming.
The House has authorized a new package of industry aid in the form of research and development funds for advanced technology vehicles. H.R. 3246 still needs to be funded, but authorization is for up to $2.9b over the next five years. The AP reports that the bill would fund research on “technologies such as batteries for hybrid vehicles, electric cars, hydrogen fuel cells and infrastructure for the electric grid.” Notice something strange there? President Obama had previously moved to cut funding of hydrogen research, a move that DOE spokesfolks at the time explained by gently reminding that “the probability of deploying hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in the next 10 to 20 years is low.”
I’ve long argued that if Detroit were to be nationalized (and it was, not that I’m arguing it was a good idea) the US government should make Detroit make it worth the taxpayers’ while and return production from low wage countries, such as Mexico, to the United States. This would have two effects: more US citizens would be hired and the government’s trade deficit would be reduced. Hey, if you’re going to make a private enterprise a government arm, then make that government arm contribute something positive to the country. Much of Detroit’s portfolio is made in Mexico: the Ford Fusion, the (yet to be released) Ford Fiesta, The Ford F-Series, the Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra, the Chevrolet Aveo/Pontiac G3 and the Chevrolet HHR to name but a few. This has long been a practice of Detroit and some transplants (e.g., VW with the Jetta and Beetle; Toyota with the Tacoma). Exploit low wage countries for maximum profits in higher wage countries. Well, Honda didn’t get the message.
If there’s one thing that can be counted on in the world of investment, it’s that someone is bound to copy Warren Buffett’s latest move. The Oracle of Omaha has reportedly made a billion bucks in less than a year on his $230 mil investment in BYD, and that firm’s soaring stock price has other investors taking notice. Bloomberg reports that Goldman Sachs is looking at buying $250 mil worth of convertible bonds and warrants in Geely, in hopes of repeating Buffett’s success. With major global automakers (specifically GM, VW and Toyota) solidifying their dominance of the Chinese domestic market, Chinese automakers see the low-cost segments in other markets as their opportunity for growth, and Geely is no exception. The firm hopes to boost overseas sales to 66 percent of its annual sales by 2015, a goal that justifies its current pursuit of the Volvo brand (update from Thor Johnsen coming soon). Though a name-brand backer like Goldman could help Geely break into foreign markets, there are challenges aplenty for the planned investment.
Actually, I think this conversion—brought to us by the good people at Ricedexotics.com— took some real balls. The Veylet or Bentron is an automotive middle finger to all those people who view automotive heritage as anything worth noting, protecting or projecting. The question here is . . . who? Nouveau riche, of course. But after that, what? They like the Veyron’s nose but can’t afford the real thing, so figured why not stick it on something “exotic”? And then there’s the question of copyright infringement. VW (Bugatti) and BMW (Bentley) must have scouts roaming the Far East looking for branded knocks offs, so why haven’t they— oh wait. Never mind.
“It’s our company’s long-term target, to be China’s No. 1 automaker by 2015 and to be the world’s leading car maker by 2025,” Build Your Dream’s marketing reps tell the AP. Ready for a reality check? BYD sold only 400k units last year, almost all of them in China. In fact, just a few years ago BYD wasn’t an automaker at all, but a battery supplier to laptop and cell phone companies. Several years and a big investment from Warren Buffet later, BYD is getting all kinds of cocky.
A brand is a promise to the consumer. It’s the umbrella under which all products must shelter. All the people responsible for a brand must ensure that it meets that promise. The Toyota Prius is a promise of reliable transportation that achieve high-mileage with low emissions. So it’s no wonder that Toyota has decided to stretch the brand to other vehicles. Oh, wait, the Prius isn’t a brand. It’s a model within a brand, which contains other examples of reliable transportation that achieves high-mileage with low emissions. Is that confusing? Well if it isn’t now, it soon will be. “The Highlander hybrid and Camry hybrid do OK, but calling it ‘Synergy Drive’ never resonated with consumers,” veteran Toyota dealer Earl Stewart told Automotive News [sub]. “But they can make hay on the Prius name. It’s a magic name. If somebody says ‘I drive a Prius,’ everybody knows what he means.” But for how long? The truth about a brand is that its products must fulfill the brand’s promise, or the brand dies. Confusing that brand diminishes it and alienates the people who gave birth to it in the first place. Maybe not straight away, but eventually. And forever.
Greg writes:
Hello, I have a 2002 Toyota Camry SE with about 120K on it that has been overall pretty reliable. For the past few months, the OEM (it is not aftermarket) radio has turned psychotic and turns itself on and off and flips from radio to CD at will – or so it seems. It seems like this is a loose wire as it is really noticeable when I go over certain bumpy areas in the road, the radio pre-sets disappear and I have to reset them again and again. Can you advise me what to do next?
PS – My four year old thinks there is a mouse in the radio since it turns it self off and on all of the time.
Recent Comments