TOYOTA - market saturation?

[regfootball]

Has toyota hit the wall? Have all their products become unfocused and do they have too many? Have they spread themselves too thin? Is their quality suffering because of trying to please all customers and developing them too fast? Will their cars outlast the payment book anymore?

[Drew Dowdell]

Has toyota hit the wall?  Have all their products become unfocused and do they have too many?  Have they spread themselves too thin?  Is their quality suffering because of trying to please all customers and developing them too fast?  Will their cars outlast the payment book anymore?

166050[/snapback]

the cars will... the owners might not...

[Petra]

Has toyota hit the wall?

Not quite yet, at least in this market. I'd say give it another 10 years. Japan is a different story.

Have all their products become unfocused and do they have too many?

"Unfocused?" Most Toyota models that I can think of are about as non-descript as you can get. As for having too many products, I would say yes. However, they do a much, much better job of disguising their cloned models that GM has done until now/the near future.

Have they spread themselves too thin?

Only in the field of engineering staff, as the recent Corolla delay demonstrates. From any other perspective, they do amazingly well. They employ only enough people to get the job done, and no more... Unlike the bloated staff of the Big 3. Time will catch up to Toyota in another 10 or so years when the first generation of workers begin to retire en-masse, but, even then, it shouldn't be nearly as big of a thorn in their side as the UAW is for GM, Ford and DCX.

Is their quality suffering because of trying to please all customers and developing them too fast?

Toyota's quality isn't really suffering... It's just kind of stagnant. I'd say they still make about the same percentage of duds that they did 5-10 years ago. Of course, they have increased production signifigantly since then, and the more cars you make, the more bad cars are going to be built. Also, a couple of competitors have managed to improve dramatically and sneak past Toyota's stagnant scores. It will take a while for the buying public to catch onto this, though... and, even when they do, Toyota will still be making cars that are within a few percentage points as good as the next rung higher up on the ladder. It's just a result of overall quality improving for all automakers.

Will their cars outlast the payment book anymore?

Since most folks these days only "own" their car for 4 or 5 years, anyway, that point is redundant. We're living in a time of plenty, and folks have the money and the means to purchase a new set of wheels every couple of years. Combine that with the overall improvement of quality for all automakers in the last decade, and reliability really doesn't count for much anymore. It still is a strong selling point, though.