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http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...oo_hs&ru=yahoo
By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 23, 2005 6:12 p.m.
DETROIT -- A senior Toyota Motor Corp. executive confirmed the Japanese auto maker is considering a move to try to crack one of Detroit's last remaining cash-cow markets that have evaded foreign competition: "heavy-duty" pickup trucks aimed at contractors and trailer haulers.
Jim Press, president and chief operating officer of Toyota's American sales unit in Torrance, Calif., said Toyota is "studying" the possibility of adding a super-sized version of the redesigned Toyota Tundra full-size pickup truck slated to grow in size to compete more head-on with Ford Motor Co.'s 3/4" Ton trucks and other offerings from Detroit. He noted, in a recent interview, that the Japanese company may push ahead with the move even as gasoline prices remain firm.
The executive said Toyota is "watching the market" for big trucks and how demand may be affected by rising fuel costs, in an effort to make a final decision on whether to go ahead and develop the Ford Super-Duty truck fighter.
Still, "capacity exists within the resources of our engineering and development" to relatively quickly come up with a heavier duty version of the new Tundra truck Toyota plans to launch in late 2006, he said.
Toyota executives have said in the past that building a bigger version of the Tundra would require the company to add a second assembly line at its still-unfinished San Antonio, Texas, pickup factory that could build as many as 150,000 heavy-duty pickups a year.
Nissan Motor Co. also has said it, too, is interested in the heavy-duty pickup market.
Those considerations by Japan's two biggest auto makers, however, come at a time when consumers in the U.S. are shifting out of big gas guzzlers and embracing smaller, more economical vehicles in part because of high fuel costs.
Mr. Press said Toyota is monitoring those trends closely, but because the segment for big-rig pickup trucks for Toyota is such an "under-served" market that he believes it offers "a lot of potential" for growth for the Japanese auto maker.
In that market, Mr. Press said, "an advantage will go to a manufacturer that can [build trucks] with the best mileage and the best technology."
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