GM and Toyota

Today's news: http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/21/news/companies/gm_toyota_sales/index.htm?postversion=2009012109

Discuss.

Will this really matter in eight years when the capital of the world will either be in Wolfsburg or in China?

In reply to John Brown:

Ouch!

According to the CNN article Toyota posted 2008 sales of 8.97 million vehicles worldwide and GM sold 8.36 million.

According to the US numbers on Autoblog:

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/05/by-the-numbers-2008-phew-glad-thats-over-edition/

Toyota sold 2.217 million vehicles in the US and GM sold 2.980 million.

A little subtraction and we see that Toyota sold 6.753 million vehicles outside of the US and GM sold 5.38 million.

That means Toyota outsold GM outside of the US by ~1.4 million. That's a pretty big number! I wonder what the main non-US markets are. Japan? China? Russia? Europe and the UK?

I think GM gave up their desire to be number 1 long ago. They sold their HD truck business to Volvo many years ago (Toyota still owns Hino), and recently sold their MD truck business to Navistar. They also sold their bus business.

If GM's only desire was to be number 1, they would have kept these businesses, as well as increased their business however possible (acquisition, etc).

I think GM has more of a desire to be a profitable company than to be the biggest. Which is also why they sold their truck transmission company and their satellite TV company.

Maybe GM finally is coming to understand that being #1 in sales isn't everything. I know I'm gonna piss off all the domestic fanbois on the board, but if GM had put as much effort into quality control as they did cranking out millions of vehicles they would have been in a better position now.

Profit, not sales.

Jensenman wrote: Maybe GM finally is coming to understand that being #1 in sales isn't everything. I know I'm gonna piss off all the domestic fanbois on the board, but if GM had put as much effort into quality control as they did cranking out millions of vehicles they would have been in a better position now.

100% agreed. Even more so on the second line if we're talking Chrysler!

Now that Toyota is on top, we'll see how long it takes their product to exhibit the same traits that we bash GM for.

While not bad, new Japanese cars don't fill the niche that allowed to enter the market in the first place: they are no longer affordable and different. The gap in quality isn't as great as it used to be.

Now that Toyota is the biggest, they have to step up their game to avoid being toppled by a more nimble company with an innovative product, even if it does take 4 decades.

They've already started exhibiting traits (frame rust failures, cam gear failures, reverting back to drum brakes in the rear, taking over companies, and not having any fun cars).

I think Hyundai is going to be the next company to really come up strong and take everybody by storm. The Genesis is a LOT of car for the money!

P71 wrote: They've already started exhibiting traits (frame rust failures, cam gear failures, reverting back to drum brakes in the rear, taking over companies, and not having any fun cars). I think Hyundai is going to be the next company to really come up strong and take everybody by storm. The Genesis is a *LOT* of car for the money!

toyota will be Ok eventually.. They recognize internally, that they are in a quality crisis.. (yes I've heard that word) ....

they just grew too fast.. methinks and cut some corners to do it.. Though I will say after visiting most of my suppliers. Toyota still will pay you more if you produce better quality. They are a biatch to deal with but pay good...

Maybe if GM had its priorites straight years ago it would be profitable AND sell the most cars. In the 1990s, a GM exec. was being interviewd on CNBC. The exec was asked why, with its huge R&D budget, GM does not have cutting edge vehicles. The exec answered that GM was not in the business of selling cutting edge cars, it was in tehbusiness of selling the most cars. That stuck with me ever since.

David S. Wallens wrote: Today's news: http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/21/news/companies/gm_toyota_sales/index.htm?postversion=2009012109 Discuss.

That's a pretty strange way to become #1. Toyota's decline in sales were simply less than GM's. For reasons I think any import fan can understand..

IMO, one of the reasons GM's in more trouble than Ford is because of their corporate structure. Ignoring their base product while searching for other sources of income. The best example of this to me is GMAC. Once just a way for people to borrow enough money to buy a GM car, the buisiness school folks decided that they could play in the deep end of the pool with the real banks. GM transitioned from an automaker that owned a finance company to a bank that incidentally made cars. I looked up GMAC's home page a moment ago and found this:

http://www.gmacfs.com/us/en/index.html

Home loans? Insurance? "Personal Financial Services"? WTF do they think they are, Citibank? No wonder they're in so much trouble.

GM sold GMAC in it's entirety 2 or 3 years ago. That's why GMAC does all that weird stuff now. Actually, IIRC, Cerebus were the ones that bought it.

Found the article on it, it was 2006 and they got $14 billion for 51% of it and it was indeed to Cerebus.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/04/03/news/companies/gm_gmac/index.htm

GMC sold EDS and Hughes years ago. And Delphi and GMAC more recently.

GM used to be the largest corporation in the world (in dollar sales). They gave that up many years ago, when they sold some of their non-core businesses. GMAC is a core business to selling cars (financing dealers and car buyers is probably most of their business).

Selling these companies allowed them to grow outside of GM (Delphi sells to almost every automaker in the world now).

P71 wrote: ...Toyota outsold GM outside of the US by ~1.4 million. That's a pretty big number! I wonder what the main non-US markets are. Japan? China? Russia? Europe and the UK?

The difference is Toyota's penetration into the Third World. You don't see a lot of Chevys in Africa.

P71 wrote: They've already started exhibiting traits (frame rust failures, cam gear failures, reverting back to drum brakes in the rear, taking over companies, and not having any fun cars). I think Hyundai is going to be the next company to really come up strong and take everybody by storm. The Genesis is a *LOT* of car for the money!

Was there more frame rust failures than that batch of tacomas that they replaced for free?

That was the last one that i heard about, but i'll freely admit that i don't keep up with them anymore.

Jerry From LA wrote:

P71 wrote: ...Toyota outsold GM outside of the US by ~1.4 million. That's a pretty big number! I wonder what the main non-US markets are. Japan? China? Russia? Europe and the UK?

The difference is Toyota's penetration into the Third World. You don't see a lot of Chevys in Africa.

For that matter ford, Chevy and Dodge have very poor penetration into the market of where most of the driving to be done is on roadless roads. Gotta be some great growth potential there... really..

Looking around on the expeditionportal.com the folks there favor Land Rovers and Toyotas heavily for overland travel due to 1. toughness and 2. parts availability. If a land cruiser breaks in Namibia there are parts there on the shelf... I've seen some builds on there with ford superdutys that do well functionally, but expect to sit for a while waiting for someone to air freight you a part if she breaks in the real middle of nowhere.

P71 wrote:

Jensenman wrote: Maybe GM finally is coming to understand that being #1 in sales isn't everything. I know I'm gonna piss off all the domestic fanbois on the board, but if GM had put as much effort into quality control as they did cranking out millions of vehicles they would have been in a better position now.

100% agreed. Even more so on the second line if we're talking Chrysler!

Makes you wonder what will happen to Chrysler's QC when they pair up with Fiat...

While not a huge part of the picture most countries with poor roads have major issues with US built trucks because of size, believe it or not the US trucks are too big for poor road conditions, even in Oz the Bronco was a joke as a serious off-roader as it was too wide for the trails, the car of choice is and was the Landcruiser.

What did the US companies learn, not a damn thing, the trucks keep getting bigger.

My pet hate is driving down US75, passing and being passed by 100s of quad cab and SUV vehicles with one passenger on board, no tow hitch and not a single scratch to show it has been treated as a truck, why can't they use something economical to get the groceries? This is not going to help the bottom line in countries with less than optimal conditions.

On a side note who watched the Top Gear crew cross Africa in low budget beaters, that is where the third world is at, if you want to sell to these countries, build tough reliable go anywhere vehicles, forget the pretty E36 M3.

I'm not totally saying get rid of the big trucks but build something tough and sturdy in the midrange.....the Colorado is not the answer.

P71 wrote: They've already started exhibiting traits (frame rust failures, cam gear failures, reverting back to drum brakes in the rear, taking over companies, and not having any fun cars).

And let's not forget taking a single platform and making several thinly disguised versions of the same thing, then trying to differentiate them by marketing and brand management, like with the Yarris and its Scion version.

It almost seems like GM's approach to try to have the biggest sales led them to literally be the punch line of that old joke - "Yeah, we're losing money on each one, but we make it up on volume."

MadScientistMatt wrote: And let's not forget taking a single platform and making several thinly disguised versions of the same thing, then trying to differentiate them by marketing and brand management, like with the Yarris and its Scion version.

yes it is dodgy.. but arguably more successful than the cimarron. shudder.....

Jerry From LA wrote:

P71 wrote: ...Toyota outsold GM outside of the US by ~1.4 million. That's a pretty big number! I wonder what the main non-US markets are. Japan? China? Russia? Europe and the UK?

The difference is Toyota's penetration into the Third World. You don't see a lot of Chevys in Africa.

Look at all the toyota P-ups with a bed full of AK toting Rebels and other such groups

Moparman wrote: Maybe if GM had its priorites straight years ago it would be profitable AND sell the most cars. In the 1990s, a GM exec. was being interviewd on CNBC. The exec was asked why, with its huge R&D budget, GM does not have cutting edge vehicles. The exec answered that GM was not in the business of selling cutting edge cars, it was in tehbusiness of selling the most cars. That stuck with me ever since.

In the '80's, GM's CEO stated that they were in the business to make money, not cars when asked a similar question. I think we can all see the result of that.