All along, the 2007 Car Wars was running close.
Toyota told us 9.37 million vehicles in 2007 worldwide sales.
The company said it wasn't going to release numbers beyond that.
Then GM gave their number admirably down to the last car: 9,369,524.
Too close call.
It was only then Toyota gave us another digit _ 9.366 million, about 3,000 vehicles fewer than GM's.
I asked Toyota officials if they had waited for GM to release numbers.
Maybe they even wanted to release numbers that were smaller to avert a backlash from Americans upset that an industrial icon had been dethroned as the world's top automaker _ a title GM has held for 77 years.
This is the way Toyota sources tell it:
They thought another digit wouldn't be necessary because they had expected GM's sales numbers to be far above the rounded off 9.37 million.
They had gone on past differences between the numbers GM had given for global production vs. global sales. (Global sales tend to be bigger than global production for GM.)
Toyota was surprised to see how close GM's global sales tally was to their own, and so they felt they had to release the extra digit since reporters wouldn't stop asking.
By the way, Toyota is No. 1 in global vehicle production.
Production tends to be easier to keep track for manufacturers than sales, which must add up the count from dealers.
With the race virtually a tie, this means we'll keep watching the GM vs. Toyota numbers game all this year.
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3 comments:
This article makes it look like Toyota is so so modest. It is much to the contrary, All of last year they've been bragging of overtaking GM in global sales. There's even a picture with Toyota officials having a toast of having surpass GM. Lets wake up. The Japanese would love to take away all of our industries. Are we going to allow them to accomplish their goal?
I agree that automakers like Toyota are going to be very aggressive and competitive. It is also true that Toyota officials keep saying they aren't concerned about being No. 1.
I agree that automakers like Toyota are going to be very aggressive and competitive. It is also true that Toyota officials keep saying they aren't concerned about being No. 1.
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