2 ms·

A big takeaway that I got out of this is that nearly everybody forgot about this. People are still buying and driving Toyotas. When the VW emissions thing sta

by Splines 11y ago

A big takeaway that I got out of this is that nearly everybody forgot about this. People are still buying and driving Toyotas. When the VW emissions thing started making its way through the news cycle, I read comments postulating that this might be the end of VW. Hah - people are going to forget about VW just like they forget about everything else.

csours 11y ago
> When the VW emissions thing started making its way through the news cycle, I read comments postulating that this might be the end of VW. Hah - people are going to forget about VW just like they forget about everything else. It wasn't the end of Toyota, and it won't be the end of VW; but it was the end of Toyota's goal to be the Biggest Car Company in the World[1][2], and it may be the end of VW's goal to be the Biggest Car Company in the the World. Being #1 volume vehicle manufacturer is a curse! 1. https://hbr.org/2007/07/lessons-from-toyotas-long-drive https://hbr.org/2007/07/lessons-from-toyotas-long-drive - Interestingly, in this article Mr Watanabe claims that Toyota never had the goal to be the biggest car company. 2. http://www.economist.com/node/15576506 http://www.economist.com/node/15576506 - James Womack, one of the authors of “The Machine that Changed the World”, a book about Toyota's innovations in manufacturing, dates the origin of its present woes to 2002, when it set itself the goal of raising its global market share from 11% to 15%. Mr Womack says that the 15% target was “totally irrelevant to any customer” and was “just driven by ego”. According to Mr Womack, the requirement to expand its supply chain rapidly “meant working with a lot of unfamiliar suppliers who didn't have a deep understanding of Toyota culture.” Disclosure - I work for GM, these opinions are my own, etc.

2 ms·

A big takeaway that I got out of this is that nearly everybody forgot about this. People are still buying and driving Toyotas. When the VW emissions thing sta

by Splines 11y ago

csours 11y ago
> When the VW emissions thing started making its way through the news cycle, I read comments postulating that this might be the end of VW. Hah - people are going to forget about VW just like they forget about everything else. It wasn't the end of Toyota, and it won't be the end of VW; but it was the end of Toyota's goal to be the Biggest Car Company in the World[1][2], and it may be the end of VW's goal to be the Biggest Car Company in the the World. Being #1 volume vehicle manufacturer is a curse! 1. https://hbr.org/2007/07/lessons-from-toyotas-long-drive https://hbr.org/2007/07/lessons-from-toyotas-long-drive - Interestingly, in this article Mr Watanabe claims that Toyota never had the goal to be the biggest car company. 2. http://www.economist.com/node/15576506 http://www.economist.com/node/15576506 - James Womack, one of the authors of “The Machine that Changed the World”, a book about Toyota's innovations in manufacturing, dates the origin of its present woes to 2002, when it set itself the goal of raising its global market share from 11% to 15%. Mr Womack says that the 15% target was “totally irrelevant to any customer” and was “just driven by ego”. According to Mr Womack, the requirement to expand its supply chain rapidly “meant working with a lot of unfamiliar suppliers who didn't have a deep understanding of Toyota culture.” Disclosure - I work for GM, these opinions are my own, etc.