GM's Loss = Toyota's Gain

I said it two weeks ago, and sure enough it's true. I better stop making predictions.

GM has been the world's largest automaker since 1931, but Toyota Motor Corp. looks to claim that crown as early as next year as it continues to grow in the softening U.S. auto market as well as in Asia, Europe and South America.

Toyota didn't introduce its first car in the U.S. — a pokey four-door sedan called the Toyopet Crown — until 1958. Four-and-a-half decades later, the Tokyo-based company has plants in 27 countries, sells cars in more than 170 nations and is ramping up production worldwide.

As GM tries to win customers with deep discounts, Toyota is raising prices on some models. Unlike GM, the Japanese automaker is winning market share by making quality vehicles that people want to buy.

The situation casts a blinding spotlight on the changes sweeping through the once-insular U.S. auto industry, which is now shaped largely by global competition."We are seeing a confrontation between the old and the new," said David Cole, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

More here.