By Associated Press
TOKYO, Japan–Toyota said Monday it sold 2.34 million vehicles globally in the July-September quarter, fewer than General Motors’ tally, as the US rival regained its lead in the race for the world’s top automaker.
Toyota Motor Corp.’s worldwide vehicle sales for the first nine months of this year — at 7.05 million vehicles — also fell short of sales of Detroit-based General Motors Corp. at 7.06 million vehicles for the same period.
The numbers Toyota released Monday show the Japanese automaker running neck-and-neck against Detroit-based General Motors with 2.38 million vehicles for the third quarter.
Toyota, which beat GM in global vehicle sales for the first half of the year, has been riding on its reputation for high quality small cars reputed for good mileage, such as the Camry, Corolla and gas-electric hybrid Prius.
Some analysts say it’s a matter of time before the Japanese automaker — which built its business in the decades after World War II by imitating American automakers — will close in on GM.
March 19th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
General Motors Daewoo Automotive Technologies (GMDAT) finally developed an engine that will provide better performance and fuel economy than previous engine models and may prove competitive to the engines as used in current models of Toyota, Honda etc.
They recently launched a new 1.6 engine for their latest Gentra X model (known worldwide as the Aveo), which hopefully may eventually find its way also in the Lacetti model (Optra) sold in the Philippines. Here is what I got from the press release from the GMDAT website:
“The latest members of the Gentra family feature a new 1.6-liter DOHC ECO-TEC engine, which generates maximum power of 110 ps at 4,000 rpm and best-in-class maximum torque of 15.1 kg.m at 4,200 rpm. The engine¡¯s fuel efficiency of 16.0 km/l with a manual transmission and 13.9 km/l with an automatic transmission tops its predecessor and the Gentra¡¯s competitors.”
That can only mean good news for Chevrolet owners as this has really been a weak point for the current sedan and compact models being sold in the country.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
have you driven the Suzuki SWIFT lately? test drive & you will know that the Jazz & Vios are far outclassed. winners of so many awards in japan & UK..most fun to drive..it even beats the sale of the fame MINI COOPER..
October 24th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Hopefully a GM revival in the offing. People are looking for better cars from GM especially with their compact cars, these need to be vastly improved to matchup with Toyota and Honda.
Their current line-up in the Philippines (Optra, Aveo and Spark) is not yet up to par yet, with fuel economy being the biggest problem for their models. For Optra, they should bring in their VGIS and diesel versions, which would be better in terms of fuel economy if compared to the current model available in the country.
Hopefully, the talk of a new engine being developed for Aveo will push through as this will allow them to start from scratch and benchmark their engine with those of the Honda Jazz and Toyota Vios.