Toyota Jumped the Shark Today

Context: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/05/war-footing-toyota-ceo-unleashes-seven-samurai-bid-survival/#more-1625584

“With our rivals and the rules of competition also changing, a life-or-death battle has begun in a world of unknowns,” [Toyota CEO] Toyoda said during a fiscal update last week. “Cost reduction is crucial. It is a fight to restore our original strength.”

Dear Toyota USA
I read the article below and it sickens me. You are a great company well on the way to being FCA if you take your eye off product and think only of Expense controls.
Having worked for a company that cut expense for 17 straight years (when it wasn't spending $3 Billion to buy companies it had no idea what to do with), let me be the first to say, this will not work, and it will drive your talent away.
It's not employees' fault that Tundra is a dead stick. Chevy makes oodles of cash off the Tahoe/Suburban line and you can't move the metal. Your hybrid strategy is a money-losing mess. Your playboy CEO wants to go racing and no one's been minding the store for nearly a decade.
To wit:
- The Tundra is a distant 4th among full size trucks.
- Scion lived for 5 years too long.
- The FT86 was a vanity project.
- You have a rebadged Mazda2 *and* a Yaris? Huh?
- the Carbon-fiber @ scale stuff from the LF-A hasn't paid off.
- Hydrogen fuel cells are the _right_ answer, but the market wants BEVs, and you're waiting _forever_ for your solid-state tech to mature.
But here we are. It's time to 'trim the fat'. Give me a break.
Is this armchair quarterbacking? Sure. None of this is easy. You need *product* and you can't trade on your name and reliability reputation forever. You need *profitable* products that don't need incentives, and in the current climate that means trucks.
The new Camry is the definitive midsize sedan. The Taco is still good. The 4Runner is great and very profitable. Fix the Monstrosity that is the Tundra and the rest of this is academic, and kill the vanity projects.
/rant

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Southeast Christian Church Easter Pageant

Easter Pageant?! What is this, amateur hour? Who cares about some piddly church passion play? What's next, "Best Little Christmas Pageant Ever"? How's this for Piddly: Two professional composers, a 9000 seat auditorium, 75,000 tickets over a month-long run, a 300 person chorous, two IMAX-size video screens. Traditionally, Southeast's Easter Pageant has been the biggest theatrical production in Louisville. They took a year off to retool and rework it, comissioning a rework from the ground up. Whereas the previous iteration had been a "cast of thousands" broadway-style production, they wanted something...different. Hoo-boy, it was different. Let's talk about "theatre" that is 1/2 movie, 1/2 live action. Apparently, they shot it at a quarry during last year's drought, and it looks pretty good. Still, I didn't like it...distracting and interrupts the flow. Likes It's not the same program they've put on for
Read more

Driving for the Cure...? (Or, how I got blacklisted...)

Image
Let me summarize: I got asked to leave and not come back. I was asked to LEAVE A CHARITY EVENT and not return. This is not a proud story, but I'm learning to deal with it. Here goes: I got to Don Jacobs BMW around 1:15 and signed my waiver with my information (including my cell phone #). They had all sorts of BMW's to drive, from Z4 roadsters to 3-, 5-, 6-, and 7-series cars, all with different engines and Rear- and All-wheel-drive configurations. I was in heaven. The place was busy, but I was interested in driving only one car for my first drive, a BMW 335i coupe (E92 in BMW parlance). This was THE car, BMW's first turbo passenger car in 20+ years, twin-turbocharged and tractable. So, I put my name in and waited patiently, watching the crew of permatan 20-somethings shuffling people in and out of the 18 cars, wagons, and SUVs they brought. This was a much bigger event than the last one I attended on a lark back in 2001. After about an hour, Gal in the White Cap ca
Read more

No, I don't have Connective Tissue Disorder

subtitle: OWWWWWWWWW! So, Whitney and I were hanging out last night, practicing some of her Bradly exercises, specifically Tailor Sitting . As we sat there, we were discussing flexibility and she said I should lean forward from my 90-degree position as far as I could. I leaned at about a 45 degree angle and finally felt a little stretch in my behind, so I kept going. Turns out, I could bend all the way forward, still in the seated position and touch my nose to the carpet. She was suitably impressed... ...Then I got up this morning, and every piece of connective tissue from my lower back to my knees hurt. =-) Seems I'm not that flexible, after all.
Read more