Can Toyota have too much of a good thing in the US?
by Mira Oberman
Sun Feb 18, 6:29 PM ET
CHICAGO (AFP) - Fifty years after entering the US market, Japan's Toyota has set its sights on the last stronghold of its struggling American competitors: the full-sized pickup truck market and NASCAR stock-car racing.
The challenge comes at a delicate time. Chrysler joined General Motors and Ford last week in plans to shutter plants and slash thousands of jobs amid massive financial losses.
Local media is bristling at the fact that Toyota has surpassed Ford to take the number two spot in the United States in recent months and is expected to overtake GM in global sales this year.
The reports have related a backlash among the "good ole boys" of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) against the appearance of a Toyota at the Daytona 500 racetrack in Florida Sunday.
Racing team owner Jack Roush was quoted recently as saying: "Americans shouldn't buy Japanese cars."
And Detroit is fueling the fire with patriotic ad campaigns reminding customers that this is "our country."
Toyota's president for North America disagrees.
"We are an American company," Jim Press said in an interview recently, noting that many of the cars Toyota sells in the United States contain more American-built components than cars built by the US Big Three.
"If Toyota is an import car then Chrysler is an import: it's owned by a German company," Press said.
Toyota has also been fighting back with a series of print and television ads touting its 13 billion-dollar investments in ten US plants and employment of more than 35,000 Americans across the country.
It was a big shift for a company that traditionally focused simply on its products.
"The problem is people in Detroit are trying to define us and I guess we're trying to define ourselves," Press explained.
"We're a modest company. We focus on engineering good products and good customer service," he told AFP.
"We're not so good at politics and communications and all that stuff ... (but) it's focusing on us and that's why we're being a little more proactive on trying to communicate the facts."
Toyota's market research has shown that very few Americans carry their patriotism in their pocketbooks. If they did, sales certainly could not have grown so much.
But many full-sized truck customers have intense brand loyalty and it will take a lot of work to prove to them that Toyota can deliver the power and pull they are looking for.
Toyota's Tundra truck has already placed well in several NASCAR races. But racing the Camry in NASCAR's premier event and season opener, the Daytona 500, has been seen by some as the last straw.
A group calling itself Fans Against Racing Toyotas (FART) has launched a website lamenting the betrayal of beloved drivers who sat behind the wheel of a "foreign" racecar.
Despite the backlash and bad press, Toyota thinks the race is a great way to reach out to truck owners.
NASCAR is one of the most popular spectator sports in the United States with a traditional fan base in the rural heartland where Toyota has struggled harder to achieve sales.
Toyota aims to sell 200,000 Tundras in the United States this year, a modest ambition compared to the top-selling Ford F-150 series pick-up which sells between 800,000 and 900,000 vehicles a year.
But there is plenty of room left at Toyota's sprawling new truck plant in San Antonio, Texas. At 2,000 acres (809 hectares), it's the biggest manufacturing site in the world and is also bigger than Tokyo's Narita airport.
"We'll see how the reception is to the trucks and hopefully we'll be able to continue to grow our operations there," Press said.
One thing Press wishes more detractors could see is the impact Toyota has had on local communities.
He cited a recent television program about the devastation wrought on a local town after one of the Big Three shut down a plant.
"People should look at our plant in Tennessee. It's like the film is going in reverse. It just keeps growing," Press said.
Toyota posted record US sales in January capturing 16.1 percent of the US market as its sales rose 9.5 percent to 175,850 vehicles.
by Mira Oberman
Sun Feb 18, 6:29 PM ET
CHICAGO (AFP) - Fifty years after entering the US market, Japan's Toyota has set its sights on the last stronghold of its struggling American competitors: the full-sized pickup truck market and NASCAR stock-car racing.
The challenge comes at a delicate time. Chrysler joined General Motors and Ford last week in plans to shutter plants and slash thousands of jobs amid massive financial losses.
Local media is bristling at the fact that Toyota has surpassed Ford to take the number two spot in the United States in recent months and is expected to overtake GM in global sales this year.
The reports have related a backlash among the "good ole boys" of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) against the appearance of a Toyota at the Daytona 500 racetrack in Florida Sunday.
Racing team owner Jack Roush was quoted recently as saying: "Americans shouldn't buy Japanese cars."
And Detroit is fueling the fire with patriotic ad campaigns reminding customers that this is "our country."
Toyota's president for North America disagrees.
"We are an American company," Jim Press said in an interview recently, noting that many of the cars Toyota sells in the United States contain more American-built components than cars built by the US Big Three.
"If Toyota is an import car then Chrysler is an import: it's owned by a German company," Press said.
Toyota has also been fighting back with a series of print and television ads touting its 13 billion-dollar investments in ten US plants and employment of more than 35,000 Americans across the country.
It was a big shift for a company that traditionally focused simply on its products.
"The problem is people in Detroit are trying to define us and I guess we're trying to define ourselves," Press explained.
"We're a modest company. We focus on engineering good products and good customer service," he told AFP.
"We're not so good at politics and communications and all that stuff ... (but) it's focusing on us and that's why we're being a little more proactive on trying to communicate the facts."
Toyota's market research has shown that very few Americans carry their patriotism in their pocketbooks. If they did, sales certainly could not have grown so much.
But many full-sized truck customers have intense brand loyalty and it will take a lot of work to prove to them that Toyota can deliver the power and pull they are looking for.
Toyota's Tundra truck has already placed well in several NASCAR races. But racing the Camry in NASCAR's premier event and season opener, the Daytona 500, has been seen by some as the last straw.
A group calling itself Fans Against Racing Toyotas (FART) has launched a website lamenting the betrayal of beloved drivers who sat behind the wheel of a "foreign" racecar.
Despite the backlash and bad press, Toyota thinks the race is a great way to reach out to truck owners.
NASCAR is one of the most popular spectator sports in the United States with a traditional fan base in the rural heartland where Toyota has struggled harder to achieve sales.
Toyota aims to sell 200,000 Tundras in the United States this year, a modest ambition compared to the top-selling Ford F-150 series pick-up which sells between 800,000 and 900,000 vehicles a year.
But there is plenty of room left at Toyota's sprawling new truck plant in San Antonio, Texas. At 2,000 acres (809 hectares), it's the biggest manufacturing site in the world and is also bigger than Tokyo's Narita airport.
"We'll see how the reception is to the trucks and hopefully we'll be able to continue to grow our operations there," Press said.
One thing Press wishes more detractors could see is the impact Toyota has had on local communities.
He cited a recent television program about the devastation wrought on a local town after one of the Big Three shut down a plant.
"People should look at our plant in Tennessee. It's like the film is going in reverse. It just keeps growing," Press said.
Toyota posted record US sales in January capturing 16.1 percent of the US market as its sales rose 9.5 percent to 175,850 vehicles.
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