They're about to run out of money. It's pretty dire. All of the profits from north america were used to fund capital projects to build trucks/suvs/motors for them, etc.
That capital investments are still on the book and giving no return at all.
dainthomas
Lifer
- Dec 7, 2004
- 14,922
- 3,901
- 136
I'd dump my Tacoma ASAP if I wouldn't take such a huge bloodbath on resale. My buddies 09 chevy silverado get the same gas mileage as my so called "compact truck" A full size truck with hardly working V8 will get close mpg to a compact pickup with a thirsty V6
boomerang
Lifer
- Jun 19, 2000
- 18,883
- 641
- 126
OMG Toyota is about to fail, not.
Text
Like a Hollywood starlet caught drunk behind the wheel, Toyota's first operating loss looks somehow worse than if it came from a regular car-maker.
For the Japanese producer, the global recession and sharply rising yen ended a record of 70 consecutive years of profitable operations. And with more of a crash than a skid. The company burned through $6.9 billion in the fourth quarter of the year to leave a $4.5 billion full-year loss. Toyota sees worse in store: a 20% slide in revenues in 2010 leading to an $8.5 billion loss.
Still, Toyota is in much better shape than General Motors, which lost $6 billion in the last quarter, and also saw sales cut in two. The Japanese automaker has a full tank of cash. And despite the losses, it added $8 billion to its coffers over the year, ending with $30 billion of cash and quickly-sellable assets on its balance sheet.
Toyota needs to get used to a harsher world. A steadily high yen, global overcapacity and a shrinking Japanese market, where Toyota still gets a quarter of its sales, may force Toyota to break with another tradition - that of never having closed down a plant.
Toyota has lost its way, but its cash, technology and manufacturing expertise should see it through the crisis. Indeed, if the company can respond with its traditional fervor, it may find its global position is stronger than before. Japan's biggest car-maker is leaking red ink, but not the toxic kind that bathes the streets of Detroit
i have never said they will fail, someone may have, but they are bleeding more money than the Big 3 because of their recent investments in SUV's but they too have seen 35% sales declines, perhaps their margins are slightly lower, but i doubt that... Not to mention Toyota City is described as the Detroit of Japan with amazingly bad unemployment. They do have the money stashed, and that makes them safe, unless all hell broke lose, but it wont, with FIAT you see them loading up on a mass of valuable dealership networks with brand names. It could vault them way up, but they i believe have some iffy quality. That will make me question how they could fix that and get it mandated in 2 years and get reliability up to american market vehicles. We are in for a crazy new landscape though in 2 years.
postmortemIA
Diamond Member
- Jul 11, 2006
- 7,721
- 40
- 91
zero progress? new camry is sporty, it has about 270HP and per some car magazines, it can to 1/4th mile in high 14s, yet it manages 29mpg on highway. it is truth that car has improved every possible way, but so did the competition.
problem of every car manufacturer is that they are not able to profit if sales go down 30%.
toyota made terrible long term decisions, just like gm or chrysler. The only difference is that gm and ford had been improving their car-lineups the last few years, toyota jumped off into the suv deep end just the market imploded.
my uncle still has a 1993 toyota, the new models don't look any better. They have the most boring cars out there, and aren't of any better quality that ford, gm, or honda, which all make much more interesting cars of comparable quality.
nope, not at all.
it was a strategic decision to build as much capacity as they did. they could have stayed a medium player before and had appropriate capacity, but decided not to. pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. toyota is a hog.
The job of a firm strategy is to address the issues of the exterior environment. Toyota incorrectly did that. End of story.
Yep. So they started to build a large SUV plant in mississippi. Then gas went up so they changed it to prius. Nobody wants a prius now so the plant is just an empty shell rotting away money with no production.
Then you propose that the job of the firm's strategy is not to address the exterior environment? That is the most inane thing I've ever heard.
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