Toyota Motor Corp. is setting U.S. sales records and building North American factories faster than any other automaker. The Japanese company may soon reach another milestone by importing a record number of vehicles from its home country.
Toyota's shipments to the U.S. are rising for the 10th straight year. At the current pace, they'll top the previous high of 1.02 million units in 1986, surpassing a million for the first time since Toyota made its first Corolla in the U.S. late that year.
By tapping plants back home, the world's second-largest automaker has fed its dealers enough vehicles to gain two points of U.S. market share this year, at the expense of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. The risk for Toyota is that the import surge will fan criticism of the company for not ramping up U.S. capacity so more Americans could build those cars.
``Booming imports may be excellent news for the bottom line today,'' said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley. ``Politically, it's a problem for tomorrow.''
In its U.S. advertising, Toyota portrays itself as an ``American'' company. ``Being a good corporate citizen starts with hiring lots of good citizens,'' a Toyota ad in the July 31 New Yorker says. It includes a map showing Toyota's 10 U.S. assembly and parts factories and says the company's U.S. plants and dealerships provide 386,000 jobs.
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