General Motors is now focused on profit rather than global domination by volume, vice chairman Bob Lutz said in Detroit this week.
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”Being number one is not our obligation any more,” Lutz said. Toyota overtook GM in 2008 to top global unit sales.
Lutz added: ”I would much rather have a healthy car company that delivers a good profit for its shareholders.”
”Being the world’s biggest always leads to stupid behaviour,” Lutz told Kyodo News, apparently referring to Toyota’s aggressive business expansion policy and the subsequent outbreak of quality problems.
He said Toyota made large-scale investments on making large cars like pickup trucks in a bid to capture the world’s top position from GM. ”They started making poor investments…they started having quality problems.” As a result, Toyota’s reputation has been harmed, he said.
Toyota built a Texas plant specifically to make large pickups but then had to shutter it for some months after the credit crunch hit from late 2008, assigning the workers to training and community work such as painting park benches. A Mississippi plant built to make large SUVs was completed but not fitted out with auto production equipment, and is awaiting a market uptick and a different product line.
”A good automobile company concentrates on customers…that is our obligation,” Lutz said.
