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TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. is quickening its quest to unseat ailing rival General Motors Corp. as the world's biggest automaker with reported plans to start manufacturing up to 100,000 vehicles at a Subaru factory in Indiana.
Word of Toyota's ramped-up production schedule comes just days after money-losing GM said it will close 12 facilities by 2008 in a move that will slash the number of vehicles it is able to build in North America by about 1 million a year.
The combined developments could help Toyota surpass GM in worldwide production, although it is unclear if that could happen, because Detroit-based GM is growing rapidly in Asia. Tokyo-based Toyota expects to products 8.1 million vehicles this year, while GM expects 9 million, according to Greg Gardner of Harbour Consulting.
Chipping away at GM's lead also will be a new Toyota pickup truck plant scheduled to open next year in San Antonio that will add 200,000 vehicles to Toyota's annual capacity. The Japanese company's output will be boosted by 100,000 vehicles in 2008, when Toyota's new RAV 4 plant comes online in Canada.
Under the latest expansion plans, the world's No. 2 automaker has asked Fuji Heavy Industries, maker of Subaru autos, to start building Toyotas in 2007 at a Lafayette, Ind., factory operated by Fuji's wholly owned subsidiary Subaru of Indiana Automotive, the Asahi newspaper reported Wednesday, without citing sources.
Company representatives were unavailable for comment Wednesday because of a national holiday in Japan.
There are five to six candidate models for production, the paper said, with the number manufactured annually to gradually increase to 100,000 vehicles. Earlier reports have suggested that Toyota might produce hybrid vehicles at the Fuji plant.
The Indiana plant produced about 120,000 Subaru models last year.
GM lost about $4 billion in the first nine months of the year as it struggled against falling sales, rising health care costs and a U.S. market share that has wither to 26 percent from 33 percent a decade ago.
The plant closings, which will entail 30,000 job cuts, are meant to shave $7 billion off its $42 billion annual bill for operations by the end of next year, including a $3 billion cut in health care costs.
Toyota, by contrast, is on pace to set a fourth-straight year of record profits.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0511/23/0auto-392197.htm
TOKYO -- Like a great tanker holding its course through stormy seas, Toyota Motor Corp. is gaining share in the world's most competitive markets and steaming ahead with new technology. Already the world's richest automaker, it is on track to become the largest.
With General Motors Corp. losing ground in its home market, Toyota's path to the top seems unobstructed.
Yet Toyota's top managers aren't satisfied. Instead of pausing to savor their achievements, they are ramping up capacity, stepping up the pace for 265,000 employees worldwide and inducing a level of pressure that companies usually face in times of crisis.
At a briefing last month in Tokyo, Toyota executives appeared uneasy discussing the company's epic transformation from challenger venturing cautiously into new markets to the new champion in everyone's sights.
After outlining the company's strengths and weaknesses, new Chief Executive Katsuaki Watanabe glumly concluded, "There's still room for improvement." Sitting to his right in a hotel suite, Toyota's head of overseas operations, Tokuichi Uranishi, nodded in assent.
Most rivals would happily swap their problems for Toyota's. Its high profitability slightly lags that of Nissan Motor Corp., low-cost Asian rivals are coming on the scene, and recalls are rising along with sales.
But the most daunting challenge may be the consequences of the automaker's success - the arrogance and complacency that can set in at even the finest companies.
When Toyota announced three years ago that it was gunning for 15 percent of the world market, the bold declaration was widely perceived as a shot across GM's bow. The U.S. automaker has a 14.4 percent global market share this year.
But Akio Toyoda, grandson of the founder and a senior company executive, says that objective has been misunderstood. "That's not a target," Toyoda told The Detroit News. "That's a banner to rally people to make greater effort."
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051127/AUTO01/511270335
Word of Toyota's ramped-up production schedule comes just days after money-losing GM said it will close 12 facilities by 2008 in a move that will slash the number of vehicles it is able to build in North America by about 1 million a year.
The combined developments could help Toyota surpass GM in worldwide production, although it is unclear if that could happen, because Detroit-based GM is growing rapidly in Asia. Tokyo-based Toyota expects to products 8.1 million vehicles this year, while GM expects 9 million, according to Greg Gardner of Harbour Consulting.
Chipping away at GM's lead also will be a new Toyota pickup truck plant scheduled to open next year in San Antonio that will add 200,000 vehicles to Toyota's annual capacity. The Japanese company's output will be boosted by 100,000 vehicles in 2008, when Toyota's new RAV 4 plant comes online in Canada.
Under the latest expansion plans, the world's No. 2 automaker has asked Fuji Heavy Industries, maker of Subaru autos, to start building Toyotas in 2007 at a Lafayette, Ind., factory operated by Fuji's wholly owned subsidiary Subaru of Indiana Automotive, the Asahi newspaper reported Wednesday, without citing sources.
Company representatives were unavailable for comment Wednesday because of a national holiday in Japan.
There are five to six candidate models for production, the paper said, with the number manufactured annually to gradually increase to 100,000 vehicles. Earlier reports have suggested that Toyota might produce hybrid vehicles at the Fuji plant.
The Indiana plant produced about 120,000 Subaru models last year.
GM lost about $4 billion in the first nine months of the year as it struggled against falling sales, rising health care costs and a U.S. market share that has wither to 26 percent from 33 percent a decade ago.
The plant closings, which will entail 30,000 job cuts, are meant to shave $7 billion off its $42 billion annual bill for operations by the end of next year, including a $3 billion cut in health care costs.
Toyota, by contrast, is on pace to set a fourth-straight year of record profits.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0511/23/0auto-392197.htm
TOKYO -- Like a great tanker holding its course through stormy seas, Toyota Motor Corp. is gaining share in the world's most competitive markets and steaming ahead with new technology. Already the world's richest automaker, it is on track to become the largest.
With General Motors Corp. losing ground in its home market, Toyota's path to the top seems unobstructed.
Yet Toyota's top managers aren't satisfied. Instead of pausing to savor their achievements, they are ramping up capacity, stepping up the pace for 265,000 employees worldwide and inducing a level of pressure that companies usually face in times of crisis.
At a briefing last month in Tokyo, Toyota executives appeared uneasy discussing the company's epic transformation from challenger venturing cautiously into new markets to the new champion in everyone's sights.
After outlining the company's strengths and weaknesses, new Chief Executive Katsuaki Watanabe glumly concluded, "There's still room for improvement." Sitting to his right in a hotel suite, Toyota's head of overseas operations, Tokuichi Uranishi, nodded in assent.
Most rivals would happily swap their problems for Toyota's. Its high profitability slightly lags that of Nissan Motor Corp., low-cost Asian rivals are coming on the scene, and recalls are rising along with sales.
But the most daunting challenge may be the consequences of the automaker's success - the arrogance and complacency that can set in at even the finest companies.
When Toyota announced three years ago that it was gunning for 15 percent of the world market, the bold declaration was widely perceived as a shot across GM's bow. The U.S. automaker has a 14.4 percent global market share this year.
But Akio Toyoda, grandson of the founder and a senior company executive, says that objective has been misunderstood. "That's not a target," Toyoda told The Detroit News. "That's a banner to rally people to make greater effort."
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051127/AUTO01/511270335
