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Toyota #1 Worldwide!

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by micksimon, Apr 25, 2007.

  1. micksimon

    micksimon New Member

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    For the first time ever Toyota has overtaken GM in worldwide sales for the quarter. Great engineering, great quality control and most importantly, giving the consumer what they ask for have paid off.

    I personally feel that competition from Toyota, Honda, et al have driven GM to improve their vehicles across the board. They still have significant ground to make up, but I'm not writing them off just yet.

    Kudos to Toyota!
     
    #1 micksimon, Apr 25, 2007
  2. dnoh

    dnoh New Member

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    GM need to change their image. I understand their quality got better but I still don't want to buy any GM product yet. My family had Honda, Nissan, Audi, BMW, Ford and Dodge but never owned any GM car yet. They just don't have any car that interest me. Come to think of it, I can't even name one GM car except Hummer. And I obsolutely hate Hummer.

    oh I forgot about Corvette. I didn't realized it's from GM too. What else is out there? There's bunch of ugly big SUVs.
     
    #2 dnoh, Apr 25, 2007
  3. kayemarschke2

    kayemarschke2 New Member

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    [I read that this morning too. Made me smile. Stupid GM destroyed the EV1's so thats what they get. Oh and the only word that comes to my mind when I see a Hummer is OBSCENE!
     
    #3 kayemarschke2, Apr 25, 2007
  4. boulder_bum

    boulder_bum Senior Member

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    2007 Prius
    Beyond being primarily gas-guzzling SUVs that are seeing double-digit declines in sales with rising gas prices, GM cars often aren't very reliable or innovative (the H2 and H3 are listed as some of the least reliable cars in their class by consumer reports, while the Prius is mentioned as one of the most reliable family sedans).

    A friend of mine just got the Ford Escape Hybrid and while it has some of the features of the Prius, the whole experience the Prius creates feels a lot more futuristic. I think Ford leased their Hybrid technology from Toyota, as a matter of fact, but look at this:

    [​IMG]

    The readout on the screen reminds me of an Atari video game.

    You also couldn't control as much from the steering wheel, you didn't have the keyless entry, and I don't think it even had BlueTooth capabilities, which I consider almost a necessity.

    My car rental between the time I crashed my old car and got my Prius was a Ford compact and I thought it was even less impressive.

    Anecdote's aside, I think if GM is ever going to catch back up to Toyota, I think they have to be a lot more forward-thinking both in ditching their focus on primarily SUVs and on trying to get their technology up-to-par with Toyota.

    That said, it looks like GM is teaming up with Microsoft to create the next generation of dashboard displays (which should do things like synch contact lists from a Pocket PC and use Microsoft's unparalled voice recognition and text-to-speech software [I have MS Voice Command on my Pocket PC and it rocks!], etc.), but the technology currently lacks GPS navigation.

    Looks pretty cool:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiUiJaIlLRg
     
    #4 boulder_bum, Apr 28, 2007
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