Smoke and Mirrors

perhaps if we all start driving tanks we won't have to worry about Japanese taking over our playground, they don't seem to specialize in tanks

 

didn't I just say that they don't specialize in tanks

 

And I'm sure they were more fuel effient

 

And my answer is always the same : diversification.

Toyota will sell more cars than trucks because cars have always sold better than trucks, even during the SUV boom...

Such a pessimist. GM and Ford won't just disappear tomorrow, next year, or even 10 years from now.

Do you find it ironic that Toyota is more in touch with what Americans want (smaller vehicles) while GM and Ford are so out of touch, with only 45% and 33% of their cars sold being passenger cars?

This isn't about Toyota brainwashing the American public. This is about Toyota being more in touch.

THe whole market shifted toward small cars... then why didn't GM's or Ford's smaller cars pick up the slack from the lost SUV sales like for Toyota or Honda, huh?

 

Malorn, I am not sure if you know this, but there is the whole big world outside of the walls of the United States of America. And your retarded miniscule problem about Toyota taking over your world is pathetic.

 

You keep talking about ONE plant in Texas, as if that's somehow a nexus in space and time that proves that Toyota is this evil truck loving corporation...

Well look at the big picture. They're a corporation, and the corporation can't be judged by just one facility, or one division or anything like that.

 

In my opinion, Toyota is pushing much harder into their Lexus and Scion brands than they are their Toyota Truck brand... which goes in line with your 3rd fact. Lexus probably has extremely high ROI.

Read the Bloomberg article again. It mentions strong growth for Lexus sedans.

 

malorn, answer this question:
The whole market shifted toward small cars... then why didn't GM's or Ford's smaller cars pick up the slack from the lost SUV sales like for Toyota or Honda, huh?

 

So let’s look at this from a "global economy perspective" the fact that Toyota is coming into the US to take a bigger share of the Auto market in general, the truck market specifically is wrong. So how do you compare this to Microsoft taking the majority of the world market in computer operating systems but out sourcing the work to other countries?

The reality is it is cheaper for Toyota and other auto manufacturers (from an employee and manufacturing cost) to produce the vehicle in the US and other countries (Korea) than in Japan. It the same with US auto makers, it is cheaper to build in Mexico or Canada then the US and if we are not careful the only car manufacturing that will be done in the US will be foreign.

We live in a global economy no matter what we want to believe so the US auto companies need to wake up.

 

It's not just image. Has it ever occurred to you that there EXISTS a substantative difference between American cars and foreign ones beyond image?

Asking random people doesn't count. I honestly didn't know what the mileage of either a Camry or a Malibu was until I looked it up just now, so i'd have to answer i don't know. Most of the people I would ask would say the same thing because they're not shopping for a car at the moment, but a person shopping around for a car DOES THEIR HOMEWORK, and i give them the benefit of the doubt that they spend 30 minutes of their life and just go to a car comparison web site like autobytel...

And even if it's left up to marketing to decide, then shame on GM and Ford for bungling up their marketing badly that people don't know about their cars. Once again, it goes back to GM and Ford completely screwing up.

 

AND WHO'S FAULT IS THAT?

Is it Toyota because they made a deal with the devil to poison the minds of all Americans? If anyone's fault, it's the domestics fault that people don't think of them that way anymore.

Your current line of argument can't avoid going back to GM and Ford, and DC to place fault.

You're talking about mindshare. Just because Toyota has more of it right now doesn't mean that Toyota has done something wrong or all Americans are idiots. It's because the domestics are badly managed.

End of story.