Toyota 'to overtake GM in 2007'

[DoYouEverWonder]

22 December 2006

Japanese car firm Toyota is on course to overtake US rival General Motors as the world's biggest carmaker in 2007, according to the firm's own figures.

Toyota said it expected to raise global car production by 4% to 9.42 million vehicles next year.

GM plans to build 9.181 million vehicles this year. However, analysts do not expect the firm to increase production significantly in 2007.

GM has plans to cut 30,000 jobs and close several factories by 2008.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6202545.stm


Hey GM, buy a clue. Americans want hybrids.

[notadmblnd]

1. hey GM get a clue..

quit laying your buyers off.

[Selatius]

2. I hate to be devil's advocate, but GM was pushing SUVs when the hybrid train went bye-bye.

GM's workers are paying a dear price for the failure of leadership at GM. That's largely the responsibility of the Board of Directors as well as the shareholders of GM who wanted nothing but short-term profit margins (with SUVs delivering that in the 1990s and early 2000s) at the expense of long-term viability (the less profitable but still viable hybrids).

[Kolesar]

3. Toyota Motor Co funds $1 Billion initiative to promote transit for climate protection

:sarcasm:

[tabasco]

4. I know why. I own a Toyota.

It is the damn best little car.

First "import" (whatever that means) I've ever owned.

The quality on this bottom of the line Toyota just tickles me pink.

And by damn if it hasn't gone UP in value since the gas prices went up.

FORD and GM can SUCK IT as far as I'm concerned. Buying their crap is like getting on the repairs monthly payment plan.

On edit: Oh BTW did I mention that my Toyota gets easy 45 mpg highway?? On one trip to Dulles Airport and back, about 300 miles, I averaged 50 mpg (90% highway).

[sellitman]

5. Toyota has clearly made the best cars for years

GM and Ford have spent so much time greedily selling SUV's to the piggies that they forgot what quality and innovation really is. Too bad for all the workers.

[TlalocW]

6. GM's problems

First and foremost is their attitude that they know what kind of vehicles Americans want, and no matter what anyone tells them, they're not going to listen.

Second was the short term profit margins mentioned above. They refuse to think long term like Toyota.

Third is cultural. The difference between salaries between the lowest paid worker and highest paid executive in Japan businesses is incredibly lower than in American companies because these same executives worried about their short term profits are also primarily concerned with their golden parachutes when they ultimately get booted out the door.

TlalocW

[Lisa]

7. plus they are driving too slow in the passing lane!

If they are claiming to be a visionary company, they should live up to that, instead of coasting on the goodwill of consumers while laying off their workers. (Our neighbors were determined to buy GM because they wanted to try to keep jobs in this country, and they got stuck with a lemon ... if that's the way loyal customers are treated, GM is really a big disappointment.)

[Odin2005]

8. "they wanted to try to keep jobs in this country"

I can't beleive people still beleive this nonsense, as if they were still stuck in the 80s. There are Toyota factories in the US and GM factories in Mexico. The giant corporations are multinational now, calling them "domestic" and "foreign" is meaningless.

[Lisa]

9. well, this actually happened a decade ago

Admittedly outsourcing had already started then, but people hadn't connected the dots as much as they do today. The family I'm referring to were steelworkers, and they really did believe that the materials they were making were going to go right into those cars and trucks. I never made fun of them for thinking this -- after all, there had been a time when things worked the way they thought. The youngest daughter was working her way through an economics degree at the time, so I imagine that she would have told her folks about what she was learning in class about globalization. To give them credit, they never once beat up on me for having Japanese ancestry -- at a time when some of the more bigoted kids in my class decided that the problems in our rust belt city were "all because of Lisa's relatives".

The reason I mention the story is because the US automakers were churning out planned-obsolesence clunkers, drumming up buy-American and buy-Canadian ad campaigns, basically taking advantage of decent people like my neighbors at the same time as they were planning to move jobs overseas.

[theophilus]

10. It's the MARKET, baaaaaaaaaaaby! We love our Yaris.

On a recent highway trip (and we really don't travel much) it rung up an unexpectedly good 45 miles per gallon. We have really seen a difference with our gas bills and it is a nice ride. Keep up the good work Toyota and do even more to drag the dinosaur car outfits into a better new world!