Associated Press – December 23, 2006:
Toyota is about to become the world’s largest auto maker. But you didn’t hear it from them.
At a news conference yesterday, Toyota executives laid out a production target that will probably allow it to steal the bragging rights from General Motors next year. But soft-spoken company president Katsuaki Watanabe chose to focus on the company’s plan to beef up quality control, rather than bragging about topping GM.
“That’s just what the results may be,” Watanabe said quietly at a hotel in Nagoya, near the company’s headquarters in Toyota City.
Watanabe noted that Toyota’s good fortunes have received a boost from a major outside factor: surging oil prices that made the company’s cars more appealing to drivers.
GM says the perception of the company’s cars as gas-guzzlers is unfair and inaccurate, but the auto maker is undergoing massive restructuring after racking up more than $10.6 billion (U.S.) in red ink last year and $3 billion more in the first nine months of this year.
Toyota, on the other hand, is reporting record profits, churning out such best-sellers as the Camry and Corolla as well as carving out a reputation in hybrids, which use a fine-tuned technology of switching between a gasoline engine and electric motor to save gas.
GM is out of touch with reality. People want quality. If we can get hybrids too… that would be great.
This is sad because I like GM cars. The Saab, Holden, Opel and Vauxhall. Good American engineered cars. Names to proudly wear on a baseball cap. Dad used to work as an engineer in the Holden plant in Adelaide in the 60’s, and regularly brought home a shiny new car. Parked in the driveway for a weekend, one side of the car would be faded by the sun. First thing at home on a new Holden back then was to check that the steering tie rods and shock mounts has nuts, missed by drunk plant assembly workers. An English electrician built an aluminum caravan on the assembly line and drove it out past gate security, before being found advertising it for sale at the plant. We all loved GM.
Too many bad experiences with 80’s and 90’s model GM cars have me at the point that I will never seriously consider a GM vehicle. I tihnk alot of people are at this point as well. Other than the Vette, which you could argue is almost a different car company, I wouldn’t own a GM product.
Ford is the almost the same for me, other than the Trucks, none of their vehicles are appealing. The Ford cars are just non-starters for me.
Make a product that people want, and it will sell. You can even charge extra for higher quality.
Aside from bad market planning (products that don’t meet market desires), having highly paid blue collar workers producing low quality products is not a formula for success.
GM is out of touch with reality.
When did/will they move their HQ to Washington, D.C.?
J/P=?
It’s not like they can’t compete. It must be that they don’t want to.
Bring back the designers from 1957! I’d buy a 57′ Safari wagon what ever it cost. And whats wrong with ripping off a Toyota design? All of the car companys do it.. Something about form following the function?
How about the new Camero show car? sweet. The new Siilverado truck is not bad either. I think Nipon cars all look the same. Same plaster in a baloon design…
Too much reliance on cheap plastic switches, knobs, and trim killed GM cars for me.
#2 darusgrey, awesome. So that makes two Prius owners.
Who’s going to be third?
GM have always counted on fleets – government org’s, police, to buy only GM cars, like in the past. Ever since GM closed most plants in Canada, what’s the point?
They haven’t switched to any particular brand, but I’m seeing more & more imports.
#5 your are so uninformed I live within 60 miles of a GM plant a Ford pland and a Chrysler , Honda and Toyota plant and guess what all the blue collar workers are making the same money…the Toyota workers are a little bit higher paid than the others. The problem is not the blue collar workers it is the whitle collare people who can not design or market a car that people want to buy. Don’t blame those who build the car blame those that run the company
The problem with Toyota is their cars look too generic. And the people who drive them are generic clones. It’s because everybody is driving a Camry and Corolla that I would want to drive a GM to show a little originality and non-conformity.
This is great news. More cars on the road that can’t keep up with me and can be easily passed.
13-
More cars on the road that can’t keep up with you? You mean when your POS domestic is broken down (again), I am sure those Toyota drivers will be laughing their asses off as you sit on the side of the road and they roll on by. Let me guess, you drive a 300+ hp piece of garbage that gets about 10 miles per gallon, and you think you’re a real man, right?
11-
Toyotas look too generic? Uhm, the prius looks generic? Scions look generic? There’s a reason Toyota is going to be #1 – their cars just work. For a long, long time. Do you think there’s a reason toyota doesn’t have to offer ‘Employee Pricing!’ or ’60 months with NO INTEREST’? They don’t have to. People will pay for quality.
I’ll never buy another domestic vehicle, as they are all JUNK. Too many worthless bells and whistles, too many crappy plastic parts, rattle trap interiors, gas guzzling engines, blah blah blah. There’s a reason ford and gm are bleeding BILLIONS of dollars – their vehicles SUCK and the public isn’t buying it anymore.
Can anyone show the GM profit/outgoing dollors from last year??
I would LOVe to see the profit margins BEFORE they were taken by those TOP pay outs.
13 “This is great news. More cars on the road that can’t keep up with me and can be easily passed.”
LOL!
At exactly 80,000 miles, and just after my extended warranty ran out, parts of my car started failing. From breaks to engine problem to the parts of the interior door panels. To top it off, I wound up having to spend $20 for a proprietary plastic knob or else I wouldn’t be able to drive at night. I got suckered in by a financing deal.
I find it odd how the US auto makers somehow “can’t stay competitive” unless they shut down US factories and outsource, but you are always hearing about some the German or Japanese auto maker opening a plant in the US.
#13
They can’t keep up to the speed limit?
Or can’t you keep in the limit?
Anyway, fast cars are just toys. I like toys, but would never buy one for me, on my pay. The one that gets me there, confortably and safe it’s the one.
And preferably the one that keeps that mechanic bills away…
There’s three kinds of people in the world: those who understand math and those who don’t.
Wait, that wasn’t what I meant to say…
There’s two kinds of people in America; those who are savvy enough to buy a Lexus / Toyota / Scion, and those who ain’t.
So Analyzeth The Ghoti (3 time Toyota owner, future Lexus owner)
Children, children. Just because I drive an ’05 Mustang is no reason to be jealous.
An no, Brian, it’s never been in the shop. Just because you’re poor is no reason to get pissy.
GM just doesn’t seem to get it. The have screwed up so many times that they have lost all credibility in the eyes of younger (45 and under) buyers. I’m 43. I would never even consider buying a GM car. I simply work too hard for my money to risk it on a GM product.
A co-worker of mine took a chance on the new Cadillacs when GM “cleaned” them up back in the late 1990’s. The car ended up being a piece of crap. Nothing but problems. She said it was the biggest mistake she every made and regretting the day she decided to believe GM when they touted their new “Superior Quality”. It turns out it was nothing by empty talk and marketing.
GM seems like to like to blame everyone for their problems. But they did themselves in. They tried getting out the biz, they have too many product lines, their customer base is dying off of old age, and they just can’t seem to break out of a mind set that is stuck back in the 1970’s.
It blows me away that GM managed to screw up introducing the Australian Holden Monaro to the US. They took a great car and managed to screw it up to assure it would fail. It just goes to show how the executives in charge are the ones who have killed GM.
Although we need hybrids for the environment people want good quality powerful cars. I respect GM for helping to look after the environment but as long as other makers are sticking with the big powerful cars it just wont work. I only buy Vauxhalls myself but i prefer to get them from Vauxhall breakers than new and always do my research as not to buy a high polluting vehicle.
vokau zjykam tqoygirv ovgnsf gpchnys cthmyzrj cqdxoblsf