GM is #2

[Rob S.]

Since 1931, General Motors has been the largest seller of cars in the U.S. Not anymore. As of yesterday, Toyota is number one.

It just doesn't have the same ring to it - What's good for Toyota is good for America.

[Buffalo Bill]

I think you're old enough to remember how short the life span of US cars was before Toyota showed US how long cars could last if built well, of good design and materials.

[RichDesmond]

What's funny is I thought that had happened years ago.

[Cipher]

I think you're old enough to remember how short the life span of US cars was before Toyota showed US how long cars could last if built well, of good design and materials.

200 000 with was 400 000 with care.
One of the big three of yore used to get ads on at the drive in when I was little.
Cue the cheesy announcer and a final brag about 12 months 12 thoussssssssssssssssssssssannnnnnd mile warranty.
Even as a kid it sounded foolish to brag about such a hollow low set of numbers

Maybe the warranties back then were as much of an intimidation meant to get people to trade every year. My parents did for a decade mad waste of money
But the cars were lovely.

[Big Block]

Automakers own fault unfortunately. Strong clues started early in the 70's and they just kept feeding substandard product, because they could I guess.

[rphillips]

Yep, in early to mid 70's the U.S. mfg of autos. had got pretty low quality. I've always said that the Japan Mfg. migrating more & more in to the U.S. is what made the U.S. Mfg. start to do better. I still feel that way. Not surprised of Toyota getting on top, My opinion, they probably deserve it.

[GSXR7ED]

I read an article about this change a couple of days ago...

Bought a NEW Toyota Tacoma TRD Sport DCSB/AT back in May 2021...my first Truck. (Not counting the used right-hand drive Celica I had in England back in the early 90s)

I've only ever purchased Hondas (Accord & Pilot), 1 Hyundai (Elantra), and 1 Isuzu (Rodeo) brand new. It's always been about the quality of these vehicles...they all had zero failures and recalls were few & fixed.

Ed

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[roeme]

Interesting, that's what my dad told me a few years ago as well. When he was young, jap bikes steamrolled most of the established europe bike brands into the ground.
People could (and still do) whine all day long about it; but it end it happened for the simple fact that the jap bikes lasted a lot longer than what most other manufacturers produced.

[dpep]

No better example of bad judgment than GM's decision to literally crush it's electric car program that it had back in the 1990s. GM had at least a decade head start on Tesla but scrapped the entire effort to include the recalling and crushing of all the of the EV cars it had produced. Now Tesla, a company that makes only electric cars and that did not even exist while all of this was happening has a market cap greater than GM and Ford combined.

That shows what arrogance and complacency can do for you. In the absence of immediate market viability I could have understood scaling back and using the existing vehicle base as a test bed for continuing development. I might even accept mothballing the venture to be resurrected if/when more favorable conditions emerged. But they were not that smart.

Contrast this GM move with Toyota's strategy on Prius Hybrid which was first sold around same time and similarly was not an initial big seller. Because of their long range thinking Toyota came to dominate what is now an important and growing segment of the market and GM never caught up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F#Response_from_General_Motors

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[rustybronco]

I regularly get a 1/4 a million + miles on my vehicles. Never owned a Toyota or a Honda. I think the least number of miles was my 1966 Pontiac B-ville that one died at a 166,000 miles because the fuel pump eccentric came loose. Didn't care to fix it.

That's in a state where rust takes out most of them.

[Cipher]

No better example of bad judgment than GM's decision to literally crush it's electric car program that it had back in the 1990s. GM had at least a decade head start on Tesla but scrapped the entire effort to include the recalling and crushing of all the of the EV cars it had produced. Now Tesla, a company that makes only electric cars and that did not even exist while all of this was happening has a market cap greater than GM and Ford combined.

That shows what arrogance and complacency can do for you. In the absence of immediate market viability I could have understood scaling back and using the existing vehicle base as a test bed for continuing development. I might even accept mothballing the venture to be resurrected if/when more favorable conditions emerged. But they were not that smart.

Contrast this GM move with Toyota's strategy on Prius Hybrid which was first sold around same time and similarly was not an initial big seller. Because of their long range thinking Toyota came to dominate what is now an important and growing segment of the market and GM never caught up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F#Response_from_General_Motors

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They made the right decision. It was premature to have EVs as the publics awareness and level in believing oild would run out just was not there.
I think 50 years was left in 2000 or so. But self serving consumers would not make a switch unless they had to and GM knew it.

Also GM would have pioneered a great many techs that would have been surreptitiously reverse engineered by the competition making for a hell of a loss on the investment. They were beholding to investors and tyhe greed of those fine people is what drives public enterprises not alrtrusitic dreams.

Dodge Trucks sorry RAM has kept the dying business model of making gas pigs heavily marketed to morons who haul a single ass on pavement point a to b.
Truly horrendous pieces of junk that are insanely overpriced.

At least Ford has lightning and GM is coming out almost last with a usable EV truck. Maybe they had a long term plan. wait till the other commit to a platform then sweep in with a 25 yr body of knowledge and kick ass.

Also this loss of lead in sales was caused by several factors apparently Toyota had a surge in the last quarter or something. Its a meaningless bit of accounting.

[wyly]

Toyota is the worlds number 1 auto maker, that it didn't become 1st in N America is maybe not surprising as Toyota's are generally more expensive than american cars and trucks. I wanted a Toyota for many years but the price difference between Toyota and an american equivalent always held me back, even used Toyotas were more expensive than american vehicles. Once I took the plunge and paid the extra dollars I've never looked back, the quality and reliability is a step ahead of GM, Ford and Dodge.

By 2025 Toyota also plans to have 15 ev and hybrid models. https://www.motortrend.com/news/toyo...undra-preview/

[dpep]

They made the right decision. It was premature to have EVs as the publics awareness and level in believing oild would run out just was not there.

Not according to the man who made that decision.

In light of falling car sales later in the decade, as the world oil and financial crises began to take hold, opinions of the EV1 program began to change. In 2006, former GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner stated that his worst decision during his tenure at GM was "axing the EV1 electric-car program and not putting the right resources into hybrids. It didn’t affect profitability, but it did affect image." Wagoner repeated this assertion during an NPR interview after the December 2008 Senate hearings on the U.S. auto industry bailout request. In the March 13, 2007 issue of Newsweek, "GM R&D chief Larry Burns . . . now wishes GM hadn't killed the plug-in hybrid EV1 prototype his engineers had on the road a decade ago: 'If we could turn back the hands of time,' says Burns, 'we could have had the Chevy Volt 10 years earlier,'" referring to the forthcoming plug-in hybrid car which was hailed as the spiritual and technological successor to the EV1.

https://www.electricvehiclesnews.com/Footer/History/Companies/General_Motors_EV1.html

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[Cipher]

Not according to the man who made that decision.

https://www.electricvehiclesnews.com/Footer/History/Companies/General_Motors_EV1.html

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Yeah Ted Cruz did a turnaround too to stay relevant and get forgiven.

[LAB3]

Pretty sure the whole "protecting our intellectual property" argument collapsed several years back, how short people's memories tend to be in the age of "between logins" news cycles! https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-p...are-belong-you