Quote:
Originally Posted by HoosierRon
Here we have a perfect example of someone who is incapable of imagining that Toyota can do any wrong.
The reality (for those of you interested) is that Toyota ALREADY HAS misjudged the market.
If Toyota wanted to be realistic about coming sales and not produce a huge number of vehicles that would sit on lot, it would have done this a year ago.
It's failure to see what has ALREADY COME shows that it made the same errors as everyone else.
Sounds an awful lot like GM back when it was #1, doesn't it?
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YEP.
Independent of spin, what makes Toyota's situation a little harder to see is all their previous 'momentum'.
They have had so much of that for so long ( most importantly including 2004 -2007) - nobodies picking up on in a very real sense, how severe this change up is hitting them - the overall numbers so far are not that bad.
Without a doubt, we are seeing a very large 'negative' change for them in terms of momentum.
In regards to the US, its one of the larger ones by an Asian OEM since '73 - and its probably the worst one Toyotas actually experienced here - in most ways that count.
Obviously, their planned and provisioned for (at great expense) large 'heavy' vehicle assault on product segments and geographic areas in the US has been completely disrupted - basically destroyed.
Your title is appropriate when a realistic assessment is made about where they were planning and heading for - that original 9.85/9.87 million was a target they intended to exceed at least by a little.
The best proof of this and your comments is how Nissan, Honda and Hyundai are doing versus Toyota.
You are also correct about the press on this in another way - worldwide (besides missing any insightful analysis) - the basic numbers are being misreported and minimized as well.
The zillion dollar question is for how long and how deep will this 'full speed astern' cut in terms of the future.
Which leads us to yet another aspect of their story that's not being reported properly - the lack of production flexibility in NA.
GM, Ford, and Chrysler are all showing signs of recognizing and doing the hard things faster - Toyota is going the slowest of the bunch.
This may turn out to be a correct move on their part - right now it just looks slow.
Notice, they can't even provide a useful powertrain tweak for a single one of their products.
Come the 2009 MYR, the '4' counts as 'two' Corolla/Matrix and Camry/Solara 'twin's are going to be really feeling it from virtually the rest of the industry.
( Also, the Solara goes away. )
That's significant because they are accounting for 42.5% plus of their sales right now.
Appears there is going to be a gap between the 'hybrid' restoration and now.