Ford has outsold Toyota for the third month in a row, indicating that the world’s largest automaker is far from immune to the current recession. Despite Ford’s sales struggles, Toyota appears to be facing the same bad news month after month as the automaker is losing cash and sales momentum.
In the month of June, Ford reported a mere 11 percent decline in sales, which San Diego Used Cars says indicates a much slower rate of decline compared with previous months. Meanwhile, Toyota sales fell 34.6 percent. There are numerous problems affecting Toyota, including its heavy reliance on the California auto market. Realizing that changes must be made, Westminster Toyota says that Toyota has already made a number of executive changes, and plans to change the way it manages marketing, productions, and sales.
Making matters worse for Toyota recently was General Motors, which used bankruptcy protection to extricate itself from NUMMI, a 25-year manufacturing partnership. Now Toyota must decide how to utilize NUMMI manufacturing facilities in Fremont, CA, which had been responsible for building the Pontiac Vibe, Toyota Matrix, and Toyota Tacoma.
Considering Toyota’s extensive manufacturing operations throughout U.S. and Canada, the automaker should have plenty of options predicts Los Angeles Auto Loans. However, Toyota is still plagued by its half-finished facilities in Mississippi, which were intended to produce the 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid.
With the end of the recession still not in sight, the domestic Big Three and the Japanese Big Three will likely continue to make sweeping changes internally to become more nimble to adverse market conditions. If one thing is for sure, don’t count any automaker out. (more…)
