New Boss at Toyota

The other day, Toyota welcomed their new president and he had a press conference. This is what he has to say.

・They started facing hardship in the second half of last year. It is a departure in the middle of a storm.
・They have to decide where to attack and where to withdraw.
・They have to work together as a team to restructure a new stronger Toyota.
・This hardship will last at least 2 more years. Place priority on making profit as early as possible even a season earlier than expected.
・Through making cars, they have to answer to the needs of the society, make people live in prosperity: and as a business rooted in the community, they will stimulate the economy of the local community. But they are in a big hole, they cannot even properly pay tax, which is a minimum duty. I feel frustrated. This is the start at the bottom rung.
・They would do their best to avoid being in the red three years in a row.
・He does not think they made a mistake in the idea of expanding their business in order to answer their customers’ needs but without a realistic plan, they could not ride on their strength alone.
・From the strategy of putting all the line-ups in all the areas, they are changing directions to develop individual needs by area.
・What he wants his employees to know is that it is not how much profit they would be making. Their target is to make “better quality cars”. They have to think what sort of cars people in each area want and how much they are prepared to pay. The new Prius, which is reaching 200,000 domestic orders, made them happy.
・He does not think that the young generation have lost interest (in cars). Instead, they do not have a chance to use cars. If older generations show them how enjoyable it is to own a car, young people might follow us.
・Toyota-maru departed in the middle of a storm without a sea chart. Honestly, they do not have time to talk about yesterday’s weather. They will just keep going forward, thinking about the current weather, thinking about the weather tomorrow for a safe journey forward.
・In today’s world, it will be hard whoever becomes the president. He has learned a lot from different people after being born as a Toyoda. He would like to make an effort to pay the society back through their business.

Before this press conference, as a hedge against the downturn in business, it was announced that all the top management including the president Akio Toyoda voluntarily would give 30% of their income back to the company. Listening to this, I will not be the only one who felt their mettle toward restructure with solid determination. While US car manufacturers are now working toward restructure under their insolvency law, Toyota has been leading in the business as the world No 1 motor company. Without being happy and contented in their current situation, their motto is “Tomorrow’s Toyota has to be better than today’s Toyota”. Now they seem to have a bit of a break for a while thanks to the good sales of the new Prius, I would like to see more from the new Toyota. Be positive!


★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955

Resale value ranking – SUVs

Continuing from last issue, I am again going to talk about resale value which is based on the trading price of cars at used car dealers’ 3 years after the cars were bought as new; and this time it is about SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles).

The top was the “Dualis” Nissan Motor’s SUV launched in May 2007 in the domestic market. Having developed it in Europe and manufacturing it in the UK, they are reverse imports. Last time they did reverse imports, it was 13 years ago. It shines the brilliant innovative idea of blending the design and function of SUVs and hatchbacks. It has the height of SUVs and interior of Sedans, it succeeded in attracting people who were sick of Sedans. The resale value of the “20G FOUR” is a very high percentage of 59 – 69%. The second was Honda’s “CR-V”. The new model, launched in autumn of 2006, is receiving high commendation because of its roomy space and sophisticated style. The resale value is 58 – 67%, not much less than the top rate. The third, Nissan’s “Extrail” went through a full-model change in August, 2007 and with the wider use of “scratch guard coat paint” gave a plus factor when thinking about resale. Honda’s “Crossroad 20Xi 4WD” came fourth, Mitsubishi’s “Pajero Long Super Exceed” came fifth. The sixth was Toyota’s “RAV4 SPORT”. All the top 6 are Japanese and made by 4 manufacturers. They are all putting a lot of effort in, aren’t they?

From the seventh and lower all are imported SUVs. “BMW X5 4.8i”, “BMW X3 3.0i”, “Chrysler Jeep Wrangler Sport” and “Volkswagen Touareg V6 Stolz” came in this order. This shows that people have different purposes for these cars from off-road to city riding.

As a matter of fact, this survey was done just before the launch of the “Land Cruiser 200”, so the car was not included. However, soon after its launching, they checked the resale value of the “Land Cruiser 200” and it was easily the top rate of 67 – 74%. The ‘Land Cruiser 200” is very popular not only in Japan but worldwide and is still popular after 3 years. This time, it was done at 3 years but even if they do this survey at 5 years and 10 years, or by mileage at 100,000Km and 200,000Km, I am sure the resale value of land cruisers would come to the top. But if they are old and with high mileage, the buyers will not be in Japan but overseas, so the resale value drops dramatically if it is not manual transmission model. This is because when an automatic car breaks, the whole transmission will have to be changed but with manual transmission, a local mechanics can fix it easily.
After writing about resale value, I do realise that cars are a financial commodity. If we can control the depreciation rate and resale value, there might be some tax benefit. No – it would be a more specialized topic from here, so I had better stop here.


★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955