Toyota could surpass GM as top automaker in 2007

[bigsky2]

Here's an interesting article about Toyota's expectations for '07:

Toyota announced on Friday a global production target of 9.42 million vehicles for next year, increasing the odds that the Japanese manufacturer will surpass troubled General Motors Corp. as the world's No. 1 automaker.

Full article here:
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2006/12/22/toyotaproduction.html

[static808]

could be good or bad: toyota can construe this turn of events as a reason to sit on their laurels and cut R and D budgets, which in turn could lead to questionable quality down the road. this also makes toyota the big bad wolf, being the number one automaker. there are a surprisingly LARGE number of americans who still refuse to buy import cars, and this will only add fuel to their fire. i could really care less about americans buying domestics, since they're the ones thats going to be stuck on the side of the road, but i would hate for toyota to become "sloppy" and produce automobiles that dont meet their traditional lofty standards. luckily, both honda and toyota pump out great vehicles, and their competition between each other definitely benefits the consumer the most..

--B