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Introduction
Okay – so you know about the Prius. In fact, you probably see Toyota’s popular hybrid car all the time, and maybe even wish that you owned one. Chances are you already own a Toyota vehicle such as the Toyota Camry, or one of the other vehicles that have built this company a reputation as the maker of dependable, quality cars, SUVs and trucks built to provide thousands of families with efficient, comfortable transportation.
But you’ve seen nothing like the new Tundra. Straight from the people who made hybrids hip comes a monster truck that will tow more than 10,000 lbs., promises to guzzle gas, and is built with one aim: taking full-size truck sales away from Nissan, Ford, GM, and Dodge. Revealed at the 2006 Chicago Auto Show, the Tundra is arriving at dealerships now, built in the US, and, it seems, ready to put the Detroit 3 on notice: you can no longer expect your trucks to get the lion’s share of truck sales. From the looks of it, the only thing efficient about the Tundra is how it will sell in America’s robust truck market, and how it will handle truck-like chores such as pulling up stumps and towing trailers.
The Tundra is just the tip of the Toyota iceberg, and symbolizes the growing American identity of Japan’s top automaker. Indeed, few things are as American as big trucks – except, perhaps, for NASCAR. Toyota has already won the Craftsman Truck Series, and has now entered the Nextel Cup Series, as well. And while watching a Camry take a victory lap at Daytona may seem strange to some, it’s fitting, as next year Toyota will celebrate 50 years selling cars in America. Beginning in 1957, Toyota began selling vehicles here, and began manufacturing parts in 1972. In 1986, they expanded operations to manufacture vehicles in a joint venture with GM at New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. in Fremont, California. The Camry, America’s top-selling car for the past four years, is built at Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky plant. More than six million Camry models have been sold in the United States since its debut 23 years ago.
50 years in America
That’s a significant commitment, resulting in a large number of cars built on American soil by American workers, and sold to American families. In fact, save for the profits that stream toward Tokyo, Toyota is well-established as a domestic manufacturer of vehicles. With 15 million cars built in the US over the last 49 years, Toyota now manufactures 10 vehicles in North America: the Avalon, Camry, Corolla, Matrix, Sequoia, Sienna, Solara, Tacoma, Tundra, and Lexus RX330. Production of the Camry Hybrid will begin in the fall of 2006 in Kentucky and the RAV4 in 2008, in Ontario, Canada.
The investment has paid off handsomely, with a 34 percent increase in profits for its most recent fiscal quarter, as well as Toyota’s position as the third best-selling automotive brand in the US and fourth-largest automobile manufacturer. Most analysts say that within the next few years, Toyota may overtake GM as the number one automaker in the world. The success of this automaker is based, especially from a manufacturing perspective, on the Toyota Production System, and its philosophy of Kaizen, or “progress through steady improvement.” Or as Jim Press, Toyota Motor USA president said during an interview at the Chicago Auto Show, “"In our company, there are two planning processes, short-term and long-term. Short-term (means) in our lifetime." Part of that planning includes $12 billion in new manufacturing facilities, with a goal of raising U.S. sales by five percent this year. According to Victor Vanov, a spokesperson for Toyota Manufacturing North America, the investment reflects the company’s customer-first focus. “That’s what’s made us very successful,” said Vanov. “Our customers keep demanding things, and we listen to them. We know the markets we want to reach and we listen to our customers-take the new Camry, for instance. We listened and it’s a new global car that’s the product of that. We also believe in ‘localization’, or building vehicles where we sell them,” said Vanov. “It’s also quality and dependability. Team members can pull a cord and stop the line at any point to make a correction. We have more than 36,000 employees in America and the Center for Automotive Research on Cars found that there are some 400,000 spin-off jobs,” said Vanov. “Look at our new plant (Toyota’s second full-sized truck manufacturing facility) in San Antonio, Texas, which we broke ground for in 2003, and will formally open in 2006. One in seven pickup trucks are sold in Texas-it’s the heart of truck country. So, that’s where we’re now building the new Tundra.” Toyota will also build the Tundra in Indiana.
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