Toyota 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.
In other regions, Suzuki does an excellent job catering to the needs of each domestic market. In India, through their long time partnership with Maruti (which has since turned into full ownership of the once state-owned automaker), Suzuki enjoys double digit market share that is the envy of every other automaker in the country. Maruti Suzuki has control over product, they understand the needs of Indians looking for new cars, and they have enough financial input into SMC’s bottom line that the executives in Japan have no choice but to listen.
All three major Japanese automakers have reported their half year financial results. After Honda last week and Toyota yesterday, Japan’s number two automaker Nissan followed today. The presentations could not have been more different. Read More >
“No, Japan is not a closed market, come on, it has zero percent duty on cars.” Such spoke Yasuo Maruta, Communications Director of Volkswagen Japan, today at Volkswagen’s Tokyo offices. Volkswagen Group sold 66,000 cars in the first ten months of the year in Japan, and is expected to sell roughly 80,000 by the end of the year, making it Japan’s largest car importer, a title it held for as long as I can remember.
Maruta’s employer wants to enlarge its footprint in Japan. Read More >
Toyota’s CFO Satoshi Ozawa presented the financial results of the first half of fiscal 2013 to a packed conference room in the basement of Toyota’s Tokyo HQ. Analysts were astounded to hear that the company beat their expectations with a 6 month operating profit of 693.7 billion yen ($8.64 billion), an EBIT of 794.5 billion yen ($9.9 billion), and a net profit of 548.2 billion yen ($6.83 billion) after Japanese taxes are paid. What baffled them much more was Toyota’s business outlook: Toyota says it might make even more money than previously predicted. Read More >
Lately we have travelled to Iran, Japan, Puerto Rico and Poland, today I’m taking you to Australia. A once-in-a-(almost)-lifetime event has just happened there.
GM shows new vigor in its largest market China. October sales across all of GM’s Chinese joint ventures were up 14.3 percent on an annual basis. The Chinese market is of increasing importance for GM. In the first 9 months of the year, 30 percent of GM’s global sales were in China, trailed by the U.S. with 28 percent of GM’s global business. Read More >
This series has featured a few 1980s Audis in recent months, including a couple of unintendedaccelerators and this crypto-Audi VW Quantum Syncro wagon. But what about the Coupe GT, which had an interesting-looking Giugiaro design (we’ll forget that Giugiaro did the Hyundai Excel) and offered American car shoppers a German alternative to sporty front-wheel-drive Japanese coupes such as the Honda Prelude and (1986 and later) Toyota Celica? You don’t see many of these things in 21st-century America, but Coloradans love Audis— even the non-Quattro ones— and I knew a Coupe GT would show up at a Denver yard sooner or later. Read More >
Looking back at three catastrophes, the high yen, the tsunami and the Thai flood, a Japanese auto executive said to me last spring: “We’ve gone through hell, and made it. What else would be there, war?” He was close. A war of words over rocks in the East China Sea destroys Japanese car sales in China, while Korea profits. Read More >
October sales data are coming in, and most are below forecast. Chrysler, Ford, and GM sold less than analysts predicted. Analysts had higher hopes for Toyota also. Volkswagen, up 23 percent, more or less met expectations. We have the final sales table, courtesy of Automotive News [sub]. Read More >
Chrysler Group’s U.S. sales rose only 10 percent in October, the smallest gain since May 2011. As suspected yesterday, Super-Sandy has been fingered as the culprit. Read More >
Japanese subsidies for eco-cars expired in September, and analysts predicted a hard landing due to pulled-forward sales. In a way, this happened, but the fall was not as hard as expected. In September, sales on all automobiles in Japan were down 3.4 percent. This month, they are down 5.7 percent. The fall would have been harder, would it not have been cushioned by the resilience of a Japanese oddity, the Kei car. Read More >
Toyota’s China sales dropped 44.1 percent year-on-year to about 45,600 units in October, The Nikkei [sub] says. Toyota confirmed the number. A territorial dispute over uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea triggered a massive boycotts of Japanese goods, especially of high-profile cars. In September, Toyota’s China sales were down 40 percent in September.
Putting an end to the vicious cycle of rumors and conjecture, Mazda’s sports car chief revealed that they will bring back the RX-7 in 2017, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Cosmo sports car.
Black: Company data. Toyota, GM: Production. VW: Deliveries. Forecast by TTAC
With GM’s third quarter release also and finally came the long-awaited global production numbers for the first nine months. We need production, because the race for the world’s largest automaker is decided by how many cars are made, not by how many are sold. Read More >
This series has featured a few 1980s Audis in recent months, including a couple of 
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