New York Times (January 5)
“Toyota Motor unseated General Motors as the top-selling automaker in the United States last year, becoming the first manufacturer based outside the country to achieve that feat in the industry’s nearly 120-year history.” Coming amidst a “tumultuous” year shaken by supply chain and manufacturing issues, the milestone also “underlines the changes shaking automakers… as they move into electric vehicles.”
Tags: 120 years, Automaker, EVs, GM, Issues, Manufacturing, Milestone, Supply chain, Top-selling, Toyota, Tumultuous, U.S.
Financial Times (November 25)
“Tesla’s market value has surged to $500bn after a fresh wave of buying ahead of the electric-car maker’s debut on the blue-chip S&P 500 stock index next month.” Up over 600% this year, shares yesterday rose to $540. “Tesla’s market cap now exceeds “Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, General Motors and Ford combined.”
Tags: Blue-chip, Buying, Debut, Electric car, GM, Hyundai, Market-cap, S&P 500, Surged, Tesla, Toyota, Value, Volkswagen
Forbes (February 18)
“Drawn by generous incentives and the opportunity to sell directly into a unifying Europe, the car industry became a poster child for inward investment.” Now the survival of this industry in the UK is at stake. Honda’s scheduled plant closing “comes after last month’s announcement of up to 4,500 job losses at Jaguar Land Rover and news that Nissan’s new X-Trail model is to be made in Japan, not Sunderland.” Furthermore, “Toyota and Ford have warned of negative consequences in the case of Britain editing the European Union without a negotiated deal.”
Tags: Car industry, EU, Europe, Ford, Honda, Incentives, Investment, Jaguar Land Rover, Job losses, Nissan, Survival, Toyota, UK
Bloomberg (August 1)
“After earnings carnage at global auto rivals,” Toyota is in the “spotlight.” From Detroit to Seoul, Toyota’s global rivals “fell short of estimates and warned of more pain from the trade war.” In contrast, “the world’s most valuable automaker will likely report modest sales and earnings growth for the most recent quarter.” But going forward the automaker still “faces a fight on every front. Potential U.S. tariffs threaten to cripple demand in its biggest market, rivals continue to pull ahead in China, and at home, the top-selling Prius is suffering a slump in popularity.”
Tags: Auto rivals, Carnage, China, Detroit, Earnings, Estimates, Growth, Prius, Sales, Seoul, Tariffs, Toyota, Trade war, U.S.
Financial Times (June 7)
“Change seems inevitable. Japan’s traditional reliance on seniority-based management is crumbling fast, and there is a clear sense of alarm as Toyota, Panasonic and Sony all talk about hiring international talent with both the broader skills and mindset to survive the next wave of technological innovation.”
Tags: Alarm, Change, Inevitable, International, Japan, Management, Mindset, Panasonic, Reliance, Seniority based, Skills, Sony, Talent, Technological innovation, Toyota, Traditional
Bloomberg (June 30)
“In total, Toyota recalled 3.4 million vehicles worldwide on Wednesday…. Kind of a big deal, but you won’t find a hint of it on the company’s investor relations site, or its global corporate newsroom or SEC filings.” While “Toyota is doing right by its customers” and notifying them of these problems, “it’s letting its shareholders down by making that information so difficult to quantify at a company level.” Toyota isn’t even “the most egregious offender.” That distinction arguably goes to Takata, but Toyota certainly has an opportunity to improve information disclosure.
Tags: Customers, Egregious, Information disclosure, Investor relations, Newsroom, Offender, Recall, SEC filings, Shareholders, Takata, Toyota, Vehicles
Bloomberg (February 5)
Slowdowns at West Coast ports have already disrupted the operations of Honda, Subaru, Toyota and McDonalds. Now it looks like the “union-led work slowdowns could shut the U.S. West Coast’s 29 ports in five to 10 days” unless a new contract deal is accepted. Excepting Toyota, all of the mentioned companies have resorted to the expensive airlifting of some cargo.
Tags: Airlifting, Cargo, Honda, McDonald's, Ports, Slowdowns, Subaru, Toyota, U.S., Union, West Coast
Los Angeles Times (May 1)
California “continues to attract more manufacturers and create more jobs than almost any other. The numbers don’t lie.” Toyota and Occidental Petroleum both announced plans to move their headquarters from California to Texas. Nevertheless, California’s business environment remains vibrant given the state’s unique “ability to incubate new companies and tech innovators, putting its businesses in the vanguard of new industries.”
Tags: Business, California, Environment, Innovators, Jobs, Manufacturers, Occidental Petroleum, Texas, Toyota, Vanguard
New York Times (December 10, 2013)
“Unesco just picked Japanese cuisine as a world cultural heritage, recognition that the Japanese government had lobbied hard for. Toyota, Sony and Nintendo may have once served as symbols of national identity, but they are now eclipsed.”
Tags: Cuisine, Government, Heritage, Japan, Japanese, Lobbied, National identity, Nintendo, Sony, Symbols, Toyota, Unesco
Barrons (January 30)
“Fracking is creating a new source of cheap energy. By 2020, the U.S. is expected to become the world’s largest energy producer. And the falling cost of natural gas (now about a third of Europe’s and less than a quarter of Japan’s) is attracting corporate attention. “After decades of outsourcing… companies like Apple, Caterpillar, Ford Motor, General Electric, and Whirlpool are making more of their goods on American soil again. It isn’t just U.S. companies that are drawn to our cheap energy, weak dollar, and stagnant wages. Samsung Electronics plans a $4 billion semiconductor plant in Texas, Airbus SAS is building a factory in Alabama, and Toyota wants to export minivans made in Indiana to Asia.”
Tags: Airbus, Apple, Caterpillar, Energy, Ford Motor, Fracking, General electric, Samsung, Toyota, U.S., Whirlpool
