Toyota Sales Up 7.8% Over 5/04 - Prius Sales Up 158% Over Trailing Year

[hatrack]

EDIT

"Toyota Division passenger cars posted record May sales of 103,630, up 14.6 percent over the same period last year. The all-new 2005 Avalon full-size sedan enjoyed sales of 9,165, up 166.8 percent. The Prius gas-electric hybrid mid-size sedan posted best-ever May sales of 9,461, an increase of 158.7 percent."

EDIT

http://www.toyota.com/about/news/corporate/2005/06/01-1-sales.html

Then there's GM, announcing layoffs equal to nearly 25% of their total hourly workforce. Gosh, any suggestions for Detroit? Hint: your answer cannot include the word "SUV".

[whistle]

1. Then next year China begins importing a $5,000 automobile...

...any reason why the U.S. should even have an auto industry?

[phantom power]

2. If the big 3 don't get their shit together in a hurry, there won't be.

A company the size of GM laying off 25%, that's a catastrophe. And I assume it will have ripple effects on all the satellite businesses that supply GM's parts.

[ReverendDeuce]

3. GM is done with until they innovate...

GM is stodgy. Nobody wants their cars because they are of poor quality -- not because of the worker, but because the lack of passion caused by producing boring products. Absurdly boring. They've been pumping out the same cars for ten years now!

Why do GM interiors still look like a goddamn Fischer-Price toy? Everything is knobby and pale grey. That was cool in 1992... but now it looks **dated**, folks!

I am not against American cars. Shit, Toyotas are built in the US... and Americans can design nice cars (see Chrysler)... So GM, what the fuck? What are you guys doing over there?

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Well...

you'll note from the same article that Lexus trucks had their best year yet, and the pickups are huge sellers. SUV's may be slowing down, but they're not out by a long shot yet.

GM once had 50% of the market, and that simply cannot be maintained even with the best management and great cars. They were far too late in plant closings over the years, and they're finally biting the bullet.

The production cycle at GM is far too long, with the Japanese able to turn out a new car in much less than half the time. They're getting better at it, but still too much bureaucracy in Detroit.

Don't count GM out yet. Cadillac is breaking ground with some really neat stuff, and Chevy is doing pretty well on the low end with some of its new cars.

[Coastie for Truth]

5. My knee jerk response would be to say that GM suffers from

a terminal case of the old "NOT INVENTED HERE" syndrome.

But with the hybrid -- GM had all the pieces while Toyota was still screwing around with the old Toyopet

<>

They had the diesel-electric locomotive from their Lectromotive Division, they had the diesel electric plants for the Navy DDE Destroyer Escorts and the Coast Guard WHEC high endurance cutters from their Detroit Diesel subsidiary, they had the diesel electric off road vehicles from their LeTourneau subsidiary
<>.

Most interesting, as a back fill when their Willow Run Hydramatic plant was totaled in a fire in 1952, they actually prototypes an "Electrodynamic Transmission" - gasoline engine ran a generator, the generator drove the wheels, shifting was by rheostats. (This was a popular engineering exercise to keep auto company engineers busy and out of trouble - everybody had one flavor or another of this kind of auto transmission in their engineering center in the late 1940's and early 1950's).

And during WW2, Divco paired with GM's Detroit Diesel to retrofit some Divco trucks
<>
with a generator and electric motor. Very few were made (custom, onesie-twosie retrofits). Ran an electric motor off of a battery, the on-board diesel recharged the battery when it got low (the was during the WW2 era of gasoline rationing). (This kluge was also described in a DU append back around February - but I could't find it).

My bottom line, take home at the end of the day -- GM had all of the pieces and never put them together.