Toyota could pass General Motors in global sales sometime this year, a once-unimaginable milestone that underscores the fading dominance of assembly-line innovations from the pioneering era of Henry Ford.
And it isn’t the only trend bedevilling Detroit. Big 3 sales are lagging at home, too.
Last month, for the first time, Toyota sold more cars than Ford Motors inside the United States. Honda, also a Japanese company, outsold DaimlerChrysler for the first time as well.
Even with $3 gasoline, Americans still love their cars. We just aren’t buying American with the fervor of the past. Of course, it isn’t quite so simple – the Japanese manufacturers have become more American, operating more than a dozen manufacturing plants in the U.S. with more on the way.
The shrinkage of the Big 3 is occurring as automakers confront customer demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles. The Japanese manufacturers are much better positioned to appeal to this market. Toyota is the world’s largest seller of gas-electric hybrids, realizing a 10 percent hike in overall sales in the U.S. this year thanks to its hybrids. The company sold more than 100,000 hybrids last year.
Ford is moving quickly to expand its hybrid production, and for good reason. Its signature F-series pickup, this country’s perennial best-selling vehicle, saw a 43.4 percent sales decline last month, while sales of Ford’s Explorer sport utility vehicle fell more than 50 percent.
“It’s not just higher fuel prices, but higher fuel prices which have changed consumer behavior toward more fuel-efficient vehicles,” Ron Pinelli, president of Autodata Corp., told The New York Times. “Toyota and Honda have certainly been the beneficiaries of that.”
Customer satisfaction surveys suggest Americans aren’t just turning away from home-grown vehicles because they’re less fuel-efficient, but because of quality issues. Of the 19 categories in a 2006 J.D. Power quality survey, only two spots were awarded to American companies.
To their credit, Ford and GM both are axle-deep in revival efforts, bidding to return the companies to profitability. Climbing health care and pension costs make it difficult to achieve a breakthrough on price, but drivers are likely to reward the carmakers that improve quality and fuel efficiency while offering plenty of cupholders with a dash of attitude and style.
