Posted on 03/04/2007 10:02:31 AM PST by LdSentinal
WASHINGTON — From a high-school auditorium near the birthplace of Elvis, Toyota was greeted like a hometown hero last week when it announced its eighth vehicle assembly plant in North America.
Students cheered as the automaker showed off a Highlander sport-utility vehicle that will be built starting in 2010 at the $1.3 billion plant near Tupelo, Miss. Gov. Haley Barbour called Toyota Motor Corp. the "world’s premiere auto manufacturer," and Sen. Trent Lott, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, promised, "When you are in our constituency, we are warriors on your behalf."
Toyota’s choice of Mississippi for a new plant should give it more clout on Capitol Hill. With Michigan-based automakers facing hardships, a few more members of Congress on its side helps as Toyota takes on some lawmakers who openly question whether what’s good for Toyota and other Japanese automakers is good for America.
"They’re manipulating the yen and it creates big differences in what they can sell their automobiles for," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, DMich., who represents thousands of Detroit-based autoworkers.
Stabenow and other lawmakers representing manufacturing states complain that the Japanese government has kept the yen artificially low, allowing their auto producers to undercut competitors and reap huge profits in the United States. They note that 46 percent of Toyota’s U.S. sales in 2006 came from vehicles imported from Japan, even as the company highlights its American work force and assembly plants in advertising.
Toyota could surpass General Motors Corp. as the world’s No. 1 automaker next year, but the company has downplayed the significance, saying it’s more concerned with its customers and maintaining quality.
In U.S. sales released Thursday, the company had its best February ever, posting sales increases of more than 12 percent.
Privately, Toyota officials acknowledge the potential pitfalls of growing rapidly in the U.S. during a period of job cuts and plant closings for GM, Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler Group.
Seiichi "Sean" Sudo, president of Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing in North America, warned in a recent presentation that the automaker could become "a scapegoat" as its Detroitbased competitors work through turnaround plans.
Toyota has opened a major advertising campaign, touting its job creation in America. Toyota has 10 plants in eight states and will start producing Camrys at a Subaru plant in Indiana this year. It also has a research-and-design center in Ann Arbor, Mich., it plans to expand.
The company has many allies in Congress, from members of the California delegation to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who helped bring an engine plant to his state.
But some members of Congress and advocacy groups question whether Toyota is unfairly benefiting at the expense of U.S. automakers, which face large health-care and retiree costs they say are exacerbated by Japan’s currency practices. The weak yen puts domestics at a price disadvantage of several thousand dollars per vehicle, they argue.
In a letter last month to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, four House Democrats said the weakened yen had allowed Japanese automakers to increase their exports to the United States by more than 30 percent in 2006.
The Bush administration has been cool to a protectionist approach. Paulson, in a speech Thursday, said erecting barriers would hurt the economy and lead to "lost jobs and lost opportunity."
Members of Congress who support domestic automakers concede that they face major hurdles. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said that "you can’t swing a dead cat in the parking lot (on Capitol Hill) without hitting a Toyota or Honda or a Mitsubishi. I don’t believe it’s a political problem."
The Camry, after all, remains the nation’s top-selling passenger car. Rogers, who grew up in the rural outskirts of Detroit, said he remembered the days when "you did not consider buying a foreign car. Now, I think the attitude of America has changed."
Most of the rust belt states are losing population and therefore losing electoral votes...
Toyota was forced by a class-action lawsuit to recall more vehicles than it produced last year.
What does this tell us?
1) Japanese defects are often hidden.
2) The media made little noise about this story (if it happened to one of the Big 3, it would be frontpage for a week)
3) The conventional wisdom that Japanese vehicles are superior in quality to American vehicles is not supported by the facts. Quality statistics demonstrate over and over again that the quality of todays vehicles are statistically insignificantly different.
You're premise is 100% correct but I don't see an electoral strategy for capturing the Presidency that doesn't at least win Ohio & Indiana - where Republicans got hammered in 2006 over "local" economic issues.
But I'm not a political strategist either so....
"2) The media made little noise about this story (if it happened to one of the Big 3, it would be frontpage for a week)"
Something I forgot to mention. Car snobs hate American cars and tend to be the ones who do automotive writing and reviews.
Yes, but this is the only time I've ever seen raw wire ends left exposed to the elements in clear view in an engine bay.
Toyota's solution? Put a connector there, then put a dummy mating connector on the other side so the wiring there does not corrode. This is also the solution for just about everyone in the world - except the American makers.
They do NOT just leave raw wire ends dangling in space.
No comment about post 28?
"No comment about post 28?"
DOH!
Check out post #61. That was supposed to be to you but for some goofy reason I replied to myself.
Hysterical......and true.
Oddly enough, that F-350 *is* starting to have weird electrical problems. They're not related to that *specific* oopsie there, but in a truck like an F-350 FX4 that costs the better part of $40,000, you'd expect them to spend the $1 that it would take to not allow moisture free access to the wiring harness.
My *XJ6* had better harness assembly than that. Says a lot when Lucas could build a better harness than Ford.
Well, I hope the unions are happy because they will soon be all out of work when the Big Three finally fold. The Japanese care about quality control and know what people want to buy. In a free market choice, not crowing about how your product is American (even if it's crappy) is what drives the competition.
"My *XJ6* had better harness assembly than that. Says a lot when Lucas could build a better harness than Ford."
I had a '99 Ranger I put 120K on before trading it after 6 years and being just sick of looking at it. ;-) It never gave me any problems but the wipers would just wipe every now and again without being on. It might happen once every 3 or 4 months. No rhyme nor reason. You may have a point about Ford's wiring. That little truck was tough as nails, though.
Polygamy???
What were the reasons of the Mustang not lasting long?
An angry wife? Or 2? Or 3?
You were an auto dealer. I was an auto *mechanic* for a while. Looked under lots of hoods. I'm in IT now, but the local Jaguar dealer keeps trying to hire me. Surprise!
Wire ends under the dash, where they will not be seen by the consumer, is less of an issue than EXPOSED WIRE ENDS LEFT IN THE OPEN IN THE ENGINE BAY. At the least, they scream "we didn't care enough to seal the harness." At the worst, they mean that the harness will degrade quickly in hostile environments, necessitating replacement of the entire harness, not just a connector or pigtail.
Other than the domestics, NOBODY does that sort of stuff.
I agree with you on Chevy Trucks and Chevy in general. The quality in General Motors and Ford has risen, since the early 80's. I think it is on par with the Japs any day of the week.
In the '70s and the '80s, the domestic automobile manufacturers sold their souls to the devil (the UAW) in return for labor peace. The chickens have come home to roost.
I doubt it?
Remember, automotive journalists and sports journalists are just as liberal, but not talented enough to work for the mainstream media.
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