Toyota Could Surpass GM
Dec 22nd 2006Nik AgarwalCars
According to this MSNBC article, Toyota has announced a production goal of 9.42 million units. This marks an increase of four percent over Toyota’s 9.04 million expected units for this year. GM, not surprisingly, does not release its production goals, but they are estimated to have produced approximately 9.2 million vehicles this year. In addition, GM is expected to further reduce their total production for next amid falling sales
Toyota’s success can be credited to more fuel efficient vehicles and a better image. GM has said that customers’ view of its vehicles being gas guzzlers is “unfair and inaccurate.” Unfortunately for GM, they have recorded over $3 billion worth of losses in the first nine months of this year.
Toyota is already the second largest automaker in the world, surpassing Ford in 2003. It is expecting to sell 9.34 million vehicles next year, up from 8.8 million expected for this year. However, Toyota is also facing its own issues in the race to surpass GM. Recently, Toyota vehicles have seen rising quality issues that have forced some recalls that could dampen Toyota’s image of producing quality vehicles. Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota president, had this to say, “‘There will be no growth without quality’”. I think that comment right there sums up the fact that he realizes that Toyota’s quality is starting to face some heat and should be focused on rather than quantity.
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What’s Wrong With GM? » The Air » Blog Archive on 31 Dec 2006 at 1:26 pm #
[...] A little over a week ago, I wrote about the possibility of Toyota overtaking GM as the world’s largest automaker. However, the one question that I did not really explore was “what is wrong with GM?” Furthermore, it is important to understand what differentiates GM from Toyota. Surprisingly, the root of the problem is not quality or workmanship. Rather, the root of the problem seems to lie with the fact of who runs the company. This article talks about a first hand negative experience with GM vehicles. In addition, the writer goes on to talk about the failure of GM to properly recognize mass market demand. [...]