TOKYO, April 24, 2007 – For the first time since capturing the lead in 1931 (except for two brief strike related slow downs) General Motors has slipped off the number one sales pedestal and handed the crown to another – Toyota.
Toyota’s combination of high quality, fuel-efficient vehicles seems to be what the world wants.
Sales results released this morning reveal that in the first quarter of 2007 Toyota produced 2, 367, 266 vehicles, besting the planned production of Detroit’s General by approximately 30,000 units.
While this is only the first quarter of the year, it is an indication of how hard GM has to fight if it wants to remain the number one car company in the world.
There was no Toyota seventy-six years ago when GM replaced Ford as the world’s number one auto-maker. With the incipient rise of low cost car producers in China and India, will we see one of these at the top of the heap in seventy years – or sooner?
For now, it’s a two horse race.
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