Toyota's high reputation

so the article is stating that Honda and Nissen are doing the right thing by stopping research and development of new alternative fuel cars???

that is so FRICKING WRONG!!~!

lets do the GM mentality. instead of fixing the problem we just reduce the cost of the current mistakes we are making and carry on!!

any large company that wants a future, their #1 priority is to be prepared for that future. this article implies that these guys have put hybrid and EV technology on hold. so what will you do next year?? when the economy is better? (i predict bottom to be around late summer, early fall)

the car industry is suffering because of many different reasons, but the biggest is that they have become stagnant. alternative fuel cars should have been much much farther advanced. we have lagging sales now because why???

BECAUSE THE ONLY THING FOR SALE IS THE SAME OLE SH**!!!

so why spend money?? its much cheaper to keep what you have. now give me something different!!! i can guarantee that an EV with a mere 100 miles of range that is freeway capable, sell it for less than $30,000 and itwill be on back order for months if not years.

 

Dave,

I didn't see anything in the article that said Honda and Nissan were cutting development on alternative fuel vehicles. You came up with that all by yourself. This is the only thing I could find that even talks about R&D:

"By comparison, Nissan is dumping 12 new models that had been planned for the next five years. It also plans more production abroad to counter the effects of the soaring yen.

Honda says it may follow, even moving r&d centers to less costly locales. And Honda has axed its cherished NSX sports car and Formula One racing programs.

Toyota has yet to scrap models publicly, even in its arguably overstocked home market."

2 of those 12 new models that Nissan is scrapping are the Titan and Armada. These were to be supplied by Chrysler but Nissan just cancelled that agreement. The plant that supplies these vehicle is in the process of being converted to produce medium-duty commercial trucks. That leaves Nissan with no place to build a full size truck. That doesn't really matter though. The Titan and Armada were never good sellers so it makes sense to kill off these models. Nissan dealers will still have the Frontier to sell. Since compact trucks are the size of full-size trucks from a decade ago this shouldn't be a problem.

What has Toyota cut from their line-up? Nothing. They continue on with the Tundra and Sequoia even though they are selling at low volumes and the dedicated plant they are built in is running at only 1/3 capacity. They introduced the Venza but kept the other 6 Toyota SUV's in their model lineup.

Toyota continues to spend $500 million a year fielding a Formula 1 team that has never won a race and circles the track mid-pack.

Toyota is continue plans to build the Lexus LF-A, a $100,000 supercar.

Toyota refuses to build many vehicle in the markets they are sold. Instead they build them in Japan and ship them all around the world. This opens them up to fluctuations in currency and transportation costs.

In short, despite going from a profit of $25 billion in 2007 to a loss of $4 billion in 2008, Toyota hasn't decided to do anything different.

 

you are right, i made an assumption. apparently i was wrong to assume that new models being introduced over the next 5 years would have anything to do with hybrid or EV technology.

 

Some new models might be hybrids or EV's but the fast majority won't be. Every automaker refreshes their line-up about every 6 years. Since only ~3% of vehicles are hybrids, that leaves an lot of newly designed conventional vehicles. Toyota's 2009 model line-up:

7 Cars (I'm being generous and calling the Venza a car)
2 Trucks
6 SUV's
1 Minivan

It looks like Toyota could do the green thing an cut a few SUV's from their truck and SUV dominated model line-up. My opinion: the FJ, Highlander, Sequoia, and Tundra could easily go )

 

ok. the only manufacturers cutting back new models was ummm.?? i forget... now as i recall, the jist of the original article was that Toyota was not making any significant changes to save money, but i may have misunderstood.

anyway, if what you say is true, then they should follow the GM business model and not change what they offer, simply reduce the cost of what they are offering since its not selling. afterall, it sold in the past, maybe... maybe one of these days it will again.

now since our banter is basically generalizing on what either, is being done, should be done, or might be done, i will stick with my original statement that says

if any car company does not get with the program and provide EV's and hybrids, they can go to hell. go out of business, whatever, i really dont care what they do.

 

I must apolgise ahead of time for what I'm about to say: You're focus is in the wrong place. Toyota is NOT draining these jobs, the people who buy their cars are - and, I cannot speak for you, but I prefer Toyota's products because they are superbly better built and have much better quality than ANY US brand. If the shoe were on the other foot, I would easily buy US cars. That is... my loyalty is where the better product is.. no matter where it is manufactured.

 

If Toyota doesn't cut back on some models they are going to be forced to extend the time between model redesigned because they won't have the money and resources to do it.

In the race to become the #1 automaker in the world, Toyota has made some of the same mistakes that GM has.

• They greatly increased manufacturing capacity
• They added a novelty brand. (Scion is the Toyota version of GM's Saturn)
• Greatly increased their model line-up.

It will be interesting to see if Toyota learn and adapts or refuses to change the magic formula and dies a slow and painful death like GM. Another company can come and knock Toyota off the pedestal just as easy as GM was knocked off. (VW, now #3, is publicly predicted they will be #1 by 2015.)

I'm not personally invested in Toyota or any other manufacturer. I don't personally see Toyota as a green company. (Take away the Prius and Toyota's line-up looks just like GM's.)

I'm also not fixated on hybrids. I care about decreasing fuel use so I'm not picky what technology is used. I'd like to see a progression from ICE -> EV -> sustainable development that doesn't need cars. I don't see hybrids as a stepping stone to EV's so they aren't important to me. I drive a Toyota Prius because it happens to get the best mileage available, not because it is a Toyota or a hybrid.

 

On one hand, Toyota has a high reputation. On the other hand, GM executives have a reputation for being high.

 

I humbly suggest you go out and do some research. Five to ten years ago everything you said was true but it no longer is. Industry experts like JD Powers that monitor quality disagree. For example, the Ford group (Ford, Mercury, Lincoln) have a fewer number of problems per vehicle than the Toyota group (Toyota, Scion, Lexus).

In Vehicle Dependability (4 years) Toyota ranks behind Mercury and Cadillac. So if you wanted better quality you should have bought a Mercury instead of your Toyota. (In the Top 10 are 2 Toyota brands, 2 GM brands, 3 Ford brands, 2 Honda brands, and BMW)

Again there is a difference between the perception and reality.

 

This is true in spirit, but some critical details differ. Saturn is/was a subsidiary with its own dealerships. Scion is a marque. Saturn used a dedicated vehicle platform until 2000. Scion shares platforms with other Toyota vehicles. Saturn had it's own dedicated plant. As far as I can tell, Scion does not.

 

This is true with the Edmunds data, but the difference is 0.67 problems per 100 vehicles. This is an insignificant difference.

 

Reputation is based on what you do (or have done in the past) and the perception of what you do (or have done in the past).

It is the historical part that is killing the domestic auto companies. The reality may or may not be the same as the perception, but it takes a long time to build a good reputation and a relatively short time to destroy it.

 

I don't see those differences as being critical:

• Toyota still had to spend massive amounts of money to advertise and promote a new brand. Manufacturers don't build dealerships putting Scions in existing dealerships doesn't save Toyota, the manufacturer money.
• Scions are built in 3 different Toyota plants in Japan. Whether you build a new plant or add onto an existing plant, the manufacturing capacity needs to be added.
• Saturns are now are simply rebadged GM products. Likewise the Scions are rebadged Toyota products.
• Saturn and Scion both have a no-haggle pricing policy.

Both Saturn and Scion were created to fix a perception problem for their respective manufacturers.

• GM thought that some import buyers simply wouldn't buy an existing GM product. Instead of fixing their brand's reputation by building cars that appeal to import buyers they created a new brand.
• Toyota realized that their buyers were aging and young buyers showed little interest in the Toyota brand. Young buyers saw the Toyota brand as reliable but boring cars that their parent drove. Instead of creating interesting and exciting cars and selling them under the Toyota brand, they instead created Scion.

In both cases the manufacturer avoided the problem instead of facing it head-on and fixing the issues.

 

bingo!!! that is what i have been saying. you say that a car company's new products consists of some ridiculously (but sadly true) low # of hybrids.

well, it has been illustrated that successful hybrids have suffered significantly lower sales figures but at levels much much less than regular cars.

Toyota, overall sales drop of 37% but Pri sales only went down 20 something %.

if Toyota (insert your car company here) would have had a bigger line of successful hybrids or EV's their sales would not have suffered as much.

to be honest with ya, Pri sales are down primarily because gas is priced too low. another mistake we are making btw, but that is another subject

 

This is very true. However, EZW1 didn't say that domestic vehicles have a poor reputation for quality. He said: ".....I prefer Toyota's products because they are superbly better built and have much better quality than ANY US brand." That is simply not the case in 2009.

This is also very true. Almost all manufacturers make high quality automobiles. The difference from the very best to industry average is less than 1 problem per vehicle over 4 years. This is from JD Power's 2008 report:

"The study also finds that five of the top 10 problems reported industry-wide in the 2008 Vehicle Dependability Study were also among the top 10 most frequently reported problems in the 2005 Initial Quality Study, suggesting that the problems are identified by owners during the initial ownership period, but have not been rectified by automakers during the three-year ownership period.

The problems include:

• Excessive wind noise
• Noisy brakes
• Vehicle pulling to the left or right
• Issues with the instrument panel/dashboard
• Excessive window fogging

I'm sorry but 4 out of 5 of those "problems" I don't consider real problems, nothing broke. When this is all people have to complain about manufacturers are doing pretty good.

 

I bet your wife hides your keys just to keep you on your toes

 

What a difference a year makes.

 

Not really, GM and Ford still suck.

 

Sorry I am slow in responding to this.

Thankyou for answering the first question, do you have an answer to the second part of the question?

 

toyota's mystique is gone, also it is very obvious from the hearings as to exactly how japanese a company toyota is. Maybe the 50% in the middle will want to keep their hard earned money in the US.