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GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz , left, and Gary Cowger, president of General Motors North America, drive up in a Saturn Sky.2005 North American International Auto Show
GM vows to fend off Toyota
Automaker, banking on new models, says it won't yield its sales crown to fast-growing Japanese juggernaut.
Ford Motor Co. Chairman and CEO Bill Ford Jr. projected optimism Sunday as the automaker showed off new concept and production cars.
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DETROIT -- Japan's Toyota Motor Co.p. is coming on strong, but General Motors Corp. won't give up its venerable post as the world's No. 1 automaker without a fight, GM Chairman Rick Wagoner said Sunday.
"We've been ahead for 73 years in a row, and I think the betting odds are we'll be ahead for the next 73 years," Wagoner told reporters during media previews at the 2005 North American International Auto Show.
Toyota is running neck and neck with Ford Motor Co. for the No. 2 position worldwide and is ramping up production to meet CEO Fujio Cho's goal of capturing 15 percent of the global automotive market by early next decade. GM's global market share dropped to 14.5 percent in 2004.
But GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said, "We're determined to stay the largest automobile company."
GM's vow to hang onto its leading position came as leaders of Detroit's other two automakers expressed similar optimism. Detroit's Big Three are coming off a year where their collective U.S. market share fell to 58.1 percent, the lowest ever, while facing severe profit pressures.
Toyota continues to gain sales and reap huge profits worldwide.
"It's not what we'd like, but it's not mass panic," Wagoner said.
GM is counting on the success of new products such as the Pontiac G6, Chevrolet Equinox and Buick LaCrosse. And Wagoner predicted GM's market share would rebound further when its new line of big pickups and sport utility vehicles arrives in 2006.
Lutz said those vehicles will be ready to display at next year's auto show.
Ford Motor Co. Chairman and CEO Bill Ford Jr. also projected optimism Sunday as the automaker showed off a raft of new concept and production cars. After losing $6.4 billion in 2000 and 2001, Ford is expected to report 2004 earnings of about $3 billion later this month.
"We have turned around the company and we are moving forward fast," Ford said. "We have turned a sea of red ink into healthy profitability."
Bill Ford said the automaker is on track to meet its goal of $7 billion in annual pre-tax profits by mid-decade. However, the No. 2 automaker's share of the U.S. market fell to 19.6 percent last year from 20.8 in 2003 -- the largest decline of any Detroit-based automaker.
"We have a sense of confidence now," Ford said. "And we have a much clearer vision of what the future holds for us."
Joe Eberhardt, executive vice president of marketing at DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group, is optimistic the automaker will continue the momentum it gained in 2004, when sales grew 3.7 percent and U.S. market share rebounded for the first time since 1998.
"We actually have the hope for some higher sales volumes this year," he said.
The company benefited last year from the launch of nine new vehicles, and is hoping to get a lift this year from new models such as the 2006 Dodge Charger, which debuts today.
Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache said the flurry of new products from Detroit's automakers may not be enough to stem the market share gains by Asian and European rivals.
"The Big Three U.S. automakers are clearly ramping up the pace of new product introductions in 2005 and 2006, and they are hoping these new products will help support market share." Lache wrote in a report last week. "Unfortunately for them, the same can be said for the competition."
GM's Wagoner and Lutz, for all their bravado about holding off Toyota, admit the Japanese automaker's momentum could be too tough to slow, especially in Asia, where GM has a 5 percent market share.
"Theoretically, we could gain against Toyota in every single market," said Lutz. "Even if we eat away a little at them in the Asian markets, the volume of their growth is so huge there."
Toyota's top executive in the United States downplays the automaker's goals as a dropping of the gauntlet before GM.
"In Japan, culturally, a lot of times there are visions enunciated to motivate the company," said Jim Press, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales USA. "We're given encouragement to look forward, to grow."
GM's Wagoner takes it very seriously, saying, "We would be silly not to acknowledge Toyota."
You can reach Ed Garsten at (313) 223-3217 or egarsten@detnews.com.
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