Toyota vehicle sales decline, QE12/08 compared to year earlier:
-31% N. America
-24% Europe
-14% Japan
-08% Asia (ex-Japan)
Hybrids and plugins:
Toyota Prius 2008, 22K$, 75% of American hybrid market in 2008
Toyota Prius 2009, 50 MPG, nickel-metal hydride battery
Honda Insight 2009, 18K$, 40/43 MPG
Ford Fusion 2009, 27K$, 41/36 MPG
Toyota, late 2009, plugin hybrid, lithium ion battery
GM Volt, late 2010, plugin hybrid, lithium ion battery
Honda thinks it can succeed with a similar look and an advantage in price. The Insight will be the least-expensive hybrid vehicle in the United States, and it will face off against the Prius, which is the most fuel-efficient vehicle sold in this country. Toyota expected to sell 180,000 Prius cars in 2009, 13 percent more than it sold in 2008 and double Honda’s goal for the Insight. Toyota plans to offer a hybrid version of every model it makes by the decade beginning in the year 2020.
In December 2008, Toyota said it expected to lose $1.7 billion in its main automaking business during the current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2009. That is the company’s first loss since its first few months in operation in 1937. But on Feb. 6, 2009, Toyota said it expected that loss to be three times larger than originally expected as global auto sales continued to plunge. Toyota said it expected to lose 450 billion yen, or $5 billion, in the fiscal year through March 31 in its vehicle-making operations. The new forecast underscored the deteriorating situation at Toyota, which blamed the larger loss on both steep declines in auto sales and strong gains by the yen. With no sign of an end to the steep slide in the world auto market, analysts said they expect Toyota to suffer an even larger loss next fiscal year.
2/6/09:
Besides cutting costs by 10 percent, the company said it was canceling or postponing the construction of plants worldwide. It has already put off opening its plant in Blue Springs, Miss., that had been scheduled to begin production in 2010. Toyota executives said the factory would not be scrapped.
Toyota posted a net loss of 164.7 billion yen ($1.8 billion) in the three months ending Dec. 31. In the same quarter last year, the company posted a 458.6 billion yen, or $5 billion, net profit.
The company said it was particularly hard hit in North America, traditionally its most profitable market. Toyota said vehicle sales in North America dropped 31 percent during the quarter compared with the same period last year to 521,000 units.
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