Toyota has been working to improve the quality of its products in light its recent recall woes, and in the wake of these recalls Toyota’s President and CEO Akio Toyoda continues to spearhead internal improvements. Toyoda also admits in a recent interview that years of aggressive expansion since 2003 is largely to blame for quality issues.
Among the next steps for Toyota is to scale back on the incentives that have fueled strong sales in the U.S. Akio Toyoda also intends to do more for the Scion brand, which he says has been “neglected.”
“In 2003, we surpassed the 6 million sales mark, and after that the rate of increase kept growing,” Toyoda said. “We look at that as the turning point. When we hit the 6 million mark, we maybe couldn’t apply the Toyota Way as thoroughly as we should have”
In addition to an image problem, Toyota’s dominance in numerous segments is faltering, particularly in the midsize sedan segment where new vehicles from Ford, Hyundai, and GM, are seeing substantial success.
“Look at the Ford Taurus. It may be making a comeback. GM also has Camry fighters. And they’ve been done with a fun-to-drive touch. And Hyundai is coming up, and they’re looking good,” Toyoda said. “So we have to start asking, ‘Can we just keep doing the Camry like this?’”
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