Would Toyota's sucess really hurt them?

Looking though Autospies over the past week, I noticed a lot of articles regarding Toyota's recent successes and the prospect that there will be a public relations backlash when they become number one. The first question I would like to ask the Autospies community is will Toyota actully hit the number one mark or will GM stop them. For the first time in a while, GM did show a small percent increase in sales. They may merge, collaborate with Chrysler, etc.

The second question I have is will there be a backlash. In Southern California, I do not feel anyone would care that Toyota is number one and GM is second. Most people just look at what the car has to offer and at what price. What about the rest of the country and world, would they care?

Toyota may be a Japanise car company, but Lexus was created in Southen California. The RX is built in Canada, the Camary is built in the Midwest (please correct me if I am wrong). What difference does it make that its corporate headquarters are in Asia? GM designed all of the new Saturns in Europe (Opel) and builds cars all around the world and brings them to the US. In this new global economy, does it really matter where a companies headquarters are located? Does Toyota really need to worry about a backlash, apart from its company becoming so mainstream that it is no longer "cool" to own the car. By too cool, I am refering to the Prius example. Initially, owning a Prius was "cool". It was not a common car, it was green, and it was different. I think the same can be said about the IS. When I go to work, Starbucks in Newport Beach, I see 5 ISs drive by me and 3 other ones parked in the parking lot.

It would be nice to get peoples oppions on this issue. Please do not turn this into a flame war. Lexus/Toyota are great, reliable cars. BMW/MB/Audi are great cars also. The new GMs are almost, if not at the level of the former.

moto - 9/8/2007 12:04:31 AM

+1 Boost

No wise autobuyer cares who is "number one". They care about the product and service that they buy. As long as Toyota continues to offer carbuyers good values, and the dealership network continues to support customers, then there will be no backlash anywhere in the world.

That said, southern California is not the epicenter of the automotive world. Automakers are widely distributed around the globe, and local businesses (highly-regarded dealerships, for example) still hold sway in fragmented markets. A town with a GM factory will still have more GM cars per capita than any other make. Europe will still have more locally-manufactured cars than American-badged ones, because American-badged cars are not designed nor advertised for the European driver.

What DOES bear investigation is how "Japanese" Toyota cars sold in North America or Europe really are. Design and production for most automakers is done in many facilities across the globe, not to mention the parts supply as well. With rare exception, ALL cars manufactured today are competent performers, have reasonably high quality, and have about the same percentage of imported components from around the globe. The made-in-America Camry would be a sales flop if sold in Japan, because consumers there demand different qualities in their cars.

But badge bias and mud slinging has taken over the marketing world. Just look at this site, where most postings show tremendous bias that can only be explained by brand marketing and ignorance.

As an experiment, if you took a US-built Toyota Camry and badged it as a Ford and sold it in Ford dealerships, with no major modifications except Ford family styling cues, and no excessive advertising campaign to educate consumers the true manufacturer of the car -- guess what would happen? It would probably sell at about the same rate as the Ford Taurus that is currently sitting in dealerships across the USA. Do the opposite, selling a disguised Taurus in Toyota dealerships, and I would bet that it would sell about as well as the current Camry sells in the USA.

It's futile to speculate the results of this hypothetical experiment, but I do so to illustrate the power of DEALERSHIP EXPERIENCE, and the very, very powerful effect of BRAND MARKETING.

One is real -- how you are treated by the dealership is tangible and meaningful.

Marketing, on the other hand, is mostly bullshit intended to confuse consumers and trick them into believing what may or may not be true. Most people believe that Toyota cars are more reliable than any other -- actually, statistics suggest they aren't significantly more reliable than anything else on the road -- and the quality gap is narrower than ever before. Styling is actually the most-often quoted reason why people choose a particular model out of several equivalent options (not that all cars do have equivalent options).

In the end, what you drive should reflect what you do. People need to match the right tool for

moto - 9/8/2007 12:05:06 AM

+1 Boost

continued:

In the end, what you drive should reflect what you do. People need to match the right tool for the job. Unfortunately, people on this site emulate the American attitude of automobiles being part of the fashion industry. Americans and other affluent people with dispostable income (or at least a line of credit) buy not the most appropriate vehicle for their true lifestyle, but rather buy a vehicle that is well suited to emulate some vision of what they think will get them more attention... and all carmakers are happy to oblige their fantasies.

Sitting in a powerful 500hp sportscar to travel to and from work in rolling traffic jams every day? Hummers to travel exclusively on paved roads for personal transportation? It is the very embodiment of apathetic stupidity, but we see it every day.

People on this site quibble over how much better the latest compact sedan from Lexus or BMW is over, for example, a Chevrolet Malibu Maxx. Well, if you live an active life with moderate sized things to haul, a young family to support, and several college tuitions to fund, and you are secure in your ability as a driver that you can travel as fast and safely as the law allows on any public road where you live -- then the Malibu is probably the best car of the bunch (regardless of your income!). You will never be caught in a situation where you need to compare slalom times or acceleration runs, so who cares???