Two recent news items on the endless business machine that is Toyota (courtesy of
www.autoblog.com)
"Toyota increases sales forecast
Despite saying that sales volume isn’t important, Toyota has increased its sales forecast. Toyota has raised its global group forecast to 8.15 million vehicles, from an earlier 8.03 million. Toyota is expecting to see big gains in the US and Middle East markets, perhaps as much as 600,000 more than a year earlier. Toyota is expected to release an offical update of its 2005 global group sales forecast. The group forecast will also include commerical truck maker Hino, as well as Daihatsu. Toyota has seen a nearly eleven percent increase in US sales in the first half of 2005. To take advantage of the increased demand, Toyota is also raising prices on it’s models."
and
"Toyota continues to add North American capacity
Toyota continues to add new North American capacity, with the recently announced Ontario assembly plant adding another 100,000 annual units of RAV4 production. This will be Toyota’s third plant in five years, and even at that, their NA sales continue to increase faster than their ability to build vehicles here. In 2004, 62% of Toyota’s vehicles that were sold in the US were built in NA; Nissan (76%) and Honda (79%) produce more of their vehicles domestically. Toyota wants to produce at least 60% of their US sales in NA, which may be difficult to do if sales continue to outstrip capacity increases. It’s the sort of problem that the overcapacitized Big 3 would love to have. Additionally, Toyota has plans in place to increase the total domestic content of their vehicles, with trucks being built at their new San Antonio plant having approximately 90% of their components sourced in NA."
It is only a matter of time before we're all driving a Toyota something, or someone else's vehicle with a Toyota-owned part somewhere inside.
