Many people (especially on this site) worry that Toyota might become the new old GM. I beg to differ. Toyota is a well run company, it turns a profit and builds good cars (not great, but good ones). When GM was swirling around the porcelain throne, people were desperately seeking ideas to recall lost customers back to GM. One thought was the “5 year, bumper-to-bumper warranty.”
The logic was watertight. Stop saying that your cars are as good as the competition (I’m looking at you, Mr Lutz) and put your money where your mouth is. Why should a customer commit tens of thousands to a car, if you can’t commit to a measly 5 years? But GM never did it. We had a powertrain warranty, but not a bumper-to-bumper one. Now compare this to Hyundai, who where, and let’s not mince words here, a joke in the car world. A commitment to quality and a 5 year bumper-to-bumper warranty (in the UK) later and Hyundai is up there with the best of them. So, if it’s good enough for Hyundai…. (Read More…)
“About four months ago, I ran out of cash,” Musk wrote in a court filing with the Superior Court of Los Angeles on Feb. 23. “I had to obtain emergency loans from personal friends. These loans are the exclusive source of cash I have. If I did not take these loans, I would have no liquid assets left.” Tough when you make only 8 grand a month and have two high maintenance women. (Read More…)
Toyota has released their production numbers for the first four months. So has Volkswagen. GM has not, but that doesn’t change the general picture: Toyota is still in the lead in worldwide production, Volkswagen catches up a bit, but sits solidly in the #3 position for the first four months of the year. (Read More…)
The long-simmering dispute over hybrid technology patents between Toyota and the Florida engineering firm Paice is rolling on, as Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that a judge from the U.S. International Trade Commission refused to dismiss the Paice suit. That suit builds on an earlier ruling requiring Toyota to pay Paice royalties on its Prius, Highlander Hybrid and RX400h sales (Toyota is challenging the amount of these royalties, ordered by a federal judge in Texas).
In Japan, the land of the mythical lifetime employment, peaks and valleys in demand are managed with temporary workers. As long as work is there, they work. If demand dries up: “So sorry, your temporary time is up. Ja ne!” During carmageddon times, most if not all of the temporary workers in Japan had been sent home – often to no home at all. The hiring of temporary workers is a closely watched leading indicator in Japan, signaling an uptake in business. The Nikkei [sub] reports that Toyota companies are hiring contract workers again as production is picking up. (Read More…)
Car & Driver voted Toyota’s FT-86 as one of the 25 cars worth waiting for. It seems like the wait will be a little longer than anticipated. Toyota had shown their sports car concept at many motor shows, from Tokyo to Beijing (but not in New York.) Of course, this was read as an imminent launch of the little brute. 2011 model year, hopefully. Mid 2011, maybe. Wrong. Not even close. (Read More…)
Toyota announces a gut-wrenching innovation: Crash test dummies with intestines. I remember the unappetizing times when crash tests were performed with (dead) pigs, or, even more gross, with human corpses (not for public consumption.) The crash test dummy changed all this. No species developed faster than the anthropomorphic test device, a.k.a. the crash test dummy. Now, it made a big leap forward. (Read More…)
The NHTSA went through their database again and found 89 deaths possibly linked to sudden acceleration of Toyotas within the last 10 years.
From 2000 to mid-May, the NHTSA received more than 6,200 complaints about sudden acceleration in Toyota cars. The reports allege 89 deaths and 57 injuries over the same period. Previously, 52 deaths had been suspected of being connected to the problem, says Bloomberg.
With such carnage, one would assume that the NHTSA is beating down the doors of the bereaved to “get into the weeds” of the matter, as Secretary LaHood fancies to say. (Read More…)
No, the UAW doesn’t want to invest into Tesla like Daimler, or, a few days ago, Toyota did. The UAW wants Tesla to go union, says Reuters. “Our union’s hope is that this venture will give first hiring preference to former NUMMI employees who are already trained and highly skilled,” UAW boss Gettelfinger said. Well, one can always hope. (Read More…)
A lot of people have been shaking their heads at the Toyota/Tesla deal. Was it just an elegant way to unload the NUMMI plant? As in “here are $50m, please buy my plant with it?” Or is it part of a grand strategy, the beginning of Toyota’s foray into an all-electric future? As usual, the truth is stranger than business plans. (Read More…)
Yesterday’s Toyota hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee was a desperate attempt to keep the Toyota issue in the headlines, and to provide flanking support for Waxman’s proposed Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The ghosts in the machine are still at large … (Read More…)
Akio Toyoda has often warned his company of the risks of “big company syndrome,” doubtless with the GM’s spectacular decades-long fall from dominance in mind. Today, he framed Toyota’s announcement of a partnership with EV startup Tesla as way to reconnect with a lost underdog mentality, saying
By partnering with Tesla, my hope is that all Toyota employees will recall that venture business spirit
Of course, he also said that only a recent return to profitability allowed Toyota to even consider this deal in the first place. And what of the deal? Toyota will buy $50m worth of Tesla shares “in a private placement to close immediately subsequent to the closing of Tesla’s currently planned initial public offering,” as a Tesla presser puts it. In exchange, Tesla is buying “site two” of the NUMMI plant for what Tesla CEO Elon Musk terms “a great price.” NUMMI will be the production site for Tesla’s Model S, a $30k Tesla, and a jointly-developed sub-$30k vehicle. The two firms also intend to cooperate on the development of EV components as well as production system and engineering support
The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that Toyota will team up with Tesla to “build electric cars in California.” The governor made this shocking revelation at Google’s I/O Conference today, and told reporters [via the Sacramento Bee]
Today is a very exciting day for me because … I am also going over to the Bay Area to talk about Tesla and Toyota forming a partnership, where they take one of the Toyota cars and make them electric. And again, they’re going to do that here in California.
The obvious scenarios involve joint manufacturing at Toyota’s former GM joint-venture plant NUMMI in Fremont, CA, although there has been no confirmation of these or any other details yet. [UPDATE: According to insidebayarea.com, a Downey, CA city councilman
confirms that Tesla will build the Model S at NUMMI. The Downey City Council had planned to approve a lease deal for a Tesla factory site, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk called to announce that his firm would be setting up shop at NUMMI]
Despite intensive examination of more than 2,000 vehicles, Toyota could not find a ghost in their machines. This is what James Lentz, Toyota’s U.S. sales chief will tell a House of Representatives panel today, if Bloomberg is not mistaken. (Read More…)
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