Competitive Connection

October 22, 2007

A look at the competition
Chrysler may cut brands
Chrysler could cut as many as five nameplates within the month as part of its quick and dramatic makeover as a newly private company.

It's "highly likely" Chrysler's top brass will approve plans to kill vehicles this month, a person familiar with the situation told the Free Press. About five vehicles are being considered for elimination, but the source would not reveal which ones.

"We have models that overlap, where we have two or three vehicles that serve the same market segment and maybe the same customer and actually compete with each other to some extent," Chrysler President and Vice Chairman Jim Press. "We also have markets where we have insufficient coverage. Where we don't have enough product."--Source: Detroit Free Press, October 17, 2007
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Then and Now
Toyota Loses Top Spot in Reliability Rankings
Consumer Reports says that “bug-ridden redesigns” caused Toyota to drop unexpectedly to third, from first, in its annual vehicle reliability rankings.

It is the first time since the current format of the ratings began in 1996 that a version of the Camry, which is the best-selling car in the United States, has not been recommended.
Consumer Reports removed high-end versions of three Toyota models — the Camry and Lexus GS sedans and the Tundra pickup truck — from its list of recommended vehicles and said it would stop recommending new or redesigned Toyota vehicles without data showing that past years’ versions were reliable.
The survey is the latest bump in the road for Toyota.  The number of vehicle recalls by Toyota has surged, and several top executives have left its American operation in recent months for positions with the Detroit automakers.--Source: New York Times, October 17, 2007
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What others are saying  . . .
GM is a standard bearer
 After dismissing them for years as a niche unworthy of attention, GM will release an average of one new hybrid model every three months for the next two years, beginning with the industry's first full-size hybrid suvs late this year.

"GM has really stepped up to be the standard bearer for the industry," says Philip Gott, director of automotive consulting for Global Insight. "Toyota stole the limelight the first time with nice technology and a brilliant marketing strategy, but I think GM will take the ball back."

For all its recent struggles in the marketplace, GM has always been a leader in pure research and development, spending $6.6 billion in the field in 2006. "They've dwarfed the rest of the industry in what they can put into it," says Dan Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis.

"There is a myth out there that GM is a technological laggard, but that's not true," says John DeCicco, senior fellow for automotive strategies at the advocacy group Environmental Defense. —Source: Time, October 11, 2007
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A look at the competition
Toyota leaders going to the competition
Three high-ranking officials from Toyota have decided in recent months to leave for Detroit.

Ford said it had hired the head of Toyota’s upscale Lexus division, James D. Farley, as its new marketing chief. Ford can use Mr. Farley’s help. Its sales are down 14 percent this year, and it has lost its perennial grip on second place in the American car market to Toyota.

Over the summer, Toyota also lost its highest-ranking American executive, James E. Press, who is now Chrysler’s co-president and vice chairman, and the head of marketing at Lexus, Deborah Wahl Meyer, who became Chrysler’s chief marketing officer.--Source: New York Times, October 11, 2007
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