What’s up at Toyota?

  Most amazing of all though is the fact that the world’s biggest car manufacturer which not so long ago was regarded as an impregnable fortress, is also floundering. Yes, I am referring to Toyota.
This is the company that pioneered production line efficiencies which were copied by virtually every manufacturer even down to relatively specialised small scale producers such as Porsche.   This was the company that ended GM’s 75 year reign as the world’s biggest car producer and which was so cash rich a few short years ago, it could have bought out GM and Ford and hardly noticed the payout.
Between 2003 and 2007, Toyota increased its global sales by around half a million each year and was aiming to reach an annual output of 10 million units by the end of 2009.   Instead, sales plummeted to 7 million units. An eye-watering profit of £6,7 billion in 2007 crumpled to an astonishing loss of £3,8 billion in the year ended March 2009 while the period April-June 2009 saw further losses of £4,8 billion.
It’s little wonder that after seven years in Formula 1 without a single victory, Toyota was forced to leave the sport with its tail between its legs.  Expenditure estimated at £1 billion could no longer be justified. Many have asked the obvious question: why the lack of success? The answer probably lies in lack of focus, or more succinctly, constant interference from suits in ivory towers in Tokyo. The motorsport division was based in Cologne and had all the ingredients to be successful, especially in terms of budget which was rumoured to be the biggest on the grid. But the effort simply didn’t gel and nor for that matter, had Toyota’s efforts towards the end of the last century to win prestigious sports car events such as the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Ironically, the scene of the company’s biggest sales successes has also become the scene of its biggest recent losses.  America had become Toyota country but with credit being reeled in, sales dwindled.
If ever a big manufacturer oozed conservatism, it’s Toyota. Customers knew what they were getting from one year to the next but there are many industry observers who state, and I concur whole heartedly with this view, that Toyota has made cars people need rather than cars people want.  Desirability is not a major factor.  The truth is that other manufacturers, the Koreans in particular, have made inroads into the “Toyota market” with cars that are more interesting and which are just as reliable. Of course, this precipitous decline is not just about product.  Toyota have been especially hard hit because volumes in their major market, the US, have plummeted by 50 percent across the board.   Toyota didn’t create the recession but they also haven’t resisted it nearly as well their closest sales competitor, VW, who are still operating in a profitable situation.
New name?
I was trawling through one of my more recent overseas car magazines when I came across an advertisement which featured an artist’s rendering of what was once a Bugatti Veyron.   The world’s ultimate supercar had been sufficiently altered, I’m guessing, to avoid a pointing legal finger from brand owner Volkswagen AG, but the intent was clear — create an association of speed and power. The advertiser was one which I admit I hadn’t heard of before, namely Nexen Tire complete with American spelling.   The ad claimed, with astonishingly unbelievable under-statement, that Nexen Tires incorporated “Next Century Technology”.
Whatever, I was keen to establish whether the advertiser is Korean or Chinese, something which the ad conveniently disguised by giving an address in Germany.   After struggling a little with a number of websites, I concluded that Nexen is Korean and that the firm has been making tyres for quite a while although I’m more than certain that you won’t find them on Bugatti Veyrons!   
Holiday carnage
At the time of compiling this article, the festive season had claimed not far short of 1100 victims on South African roads.
  This carnage is not just very, very sad — it’s disastrous and it reflects badly on the mindset of the authorities tasked with bringing some form of sanity back onto the roads.   Just before Christmas, banner headlines greeted a “police blitz” which netted more than 700 defective buses and taxis.   Come on guys — you’ve got your priorities wrong. If you’d been doing your work on a continuous basis,  there would be no need for a “blitz” as the 700 offending vehicles wouldn’t have been running around with impunity in the first place.  
 I also ask you to take a look at how many pedestrians are among the victims.  There are hundreds, yet every time I take to the motorway running past Cape Town airport, there are jay-walkers messing around in their droves crossing armco barriers just metres away from a traffic police centre.
Why is this thoroughly dangerous practice not stopped in its tracks?   It’s because the Plods and their district bosses are OBSESSED with speed trapping and the easy revenue this mis-directed practice brings in.