Radical rethink at the Top of Toyota?

Damn very interesting how I was very close to posting the same sort of rant

I would have concentrated more on the pimp 'n hoe and drug dealer Effect, though. You know, that "bling bling" bulls***

thanks for a very well written response

 

Not just GM, but a lot of large co's have become so top-heavy and senile that they can barely function well enough to ship an empty box.

For example, IBM with their weird MicroChannel PC's. They went from owning a new industry, to giving it away. They are still a well respected maker of large scale computer solutions

Or, how about Xerox? Their Palo Alto Research Center - PARC - pretty much gave the world Ethernet, laser printers, graphical user interfaces, etc etc. Folks like Bob Metcalfe (Founder of 3Com) and John Warnock (Co-founder of Adobe) did pioneering research at PARC

However, the "copier heads" at Xerox never did understand what was being invented in their own research lab. These bright young folks went off, started their own geeky small companies, which are mostly household names now

 

i have to agree that many large companies tend to hold down technology because their policies (whether intended or not) tend to control in innovation landscape of their fields.

GM, the oil companies, Microsoft, etc.... all have hurt us to a degree that we can only have nightmares over. a million great ideas have been quashed by them and they will continue to hamper development simply be just being who they are.

having GM fail will leave a huge void that new companies will rush to fill. a void that will not have the legacy baggage of "how to build a car" guidelines which are not really guidelines, but limitations to what current car companies are willing to build. none of these limitations are technical. its some market research study that has deemed that a 20% acceptance (that would "only" be around 40 million cars a year OR the most successful car in history) would not provide enough benefit to the company no matter the impact to society

 

Sorry if posted elsewhere on PC.

In Feb 09 in the USA
Ford sales down 46.3%
GM down 53%
Toyota down 40%
Honda down 38%

Some possible optimism here though based on the age of the fleet.

Calculated Risk: Vehicle Sales in January

 

I looked at the Toyota sales numbers and in spite of there being fewer selling days in February:

• total hybrid sales - very small decline (something took up slack)
• prius sales - took a hit, consistent with 2010 announcement that would 'cannibalize' the NHW20 sales as folks put off for the next model

The Toyota web site has both the January and February sales release information.

Bob Wilson

 

Even while the Prius was a stunning advance, Toyota has been showing cracks in other areas. The first, and most major setback takes place when the engineering or manufacturing leadership is replaced with business or finance leadership. (I'm not talking just the CEO, but the whole upper management in the boardroom and board of directors.) Sooner or later the engineering and manufacturing takes second priority.....eventually ensuring corporate immolation. (This indicates a better future for Ford.)

 

I've gotta smile when I read this type of analysis. My father was a marketing VP, and he was certain that any company was headed for a downfall if the Finance VP became the CEO. It wasn't that he felt marketing was the heart and soul of a company, but he never believed finance folks were the ones with broad vision. The one at the top has to be visionary and know the guts of the business. Engineering might be it; Production might be it. Legal and Finance probably are not it.

 

Ok,

Here is the followup:

So in February:

Near as I can tell, the Lexus hybrids must have made up the difference.

Bob Wilson