Toyota Sludge Article in Detroit News

[pastmaster]

I saw this today in the Detroit News, on Toyota's;

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070207/AUTO01/702070349/1148

 

[LTVibe]

From the article:

Quote:

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"Toyota's in the position that GM was in back in the 1970s..."

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[fred0803]

Quote:

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From the article:

Quote:

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"Toyota's in the position that GM was in back in the 1970s..."

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That's laughable. Then there were only three major automakers in the US. GM printed money and gave the unions fantastic benefits. And that led to their demise.

Toyota has no legacy costs, health care costs and a much younger (by design) workforce. They have no union to speak of. They are managing future workers costs and won't get themself in a position to be hurt. They essentially learned the lessons from the Big three.

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[LTVibe]

fred0803, I should have shown the complete quote:

Quote:

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"The sludge issue was a significant blow," said Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research Inc. in Bandon, Ore. "Toyota's in the position that GM was in back in the 1970s. A lot of people were buying GM products in the '70s because they were GM products, but they had fractures at the edges. It took 15 years before GM started to suffer from that long-term negative word-of-mouth."

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Spinella is talking about reputation problems, not financial problems.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

GM and Ford are about to start price wars on their light truck market and this is going to hurt them financially. You need money to fight a competition war. Who has the profits? Who has losses? Who can afford it? Nuff said.

 

[LateArrivalforLSU]

Please keep it civil folks. I'm sick of everyone getting bent out of shape in the American -vs foreign car wars.

 

[JohnBrowning]

Toyota actualy pays their non-union work force a higher wage then their UAW counter parts are getting!

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Long live the right to work states.