Toyota Tops General Motors In Sales Worldwide

Apr. 24 - KGO (KGO) -- There's a saying that goes as GM goes, so does the country. General Motors, the icon, the behemoth of Detroit and the global leader in auto making and sales. But times have changed. A much younger start-up, smart and quality conscious has slain a giant.

Check out Bay Area roads and freeways, and you see far more Japanese models than American.

But, the situation is starting to surface overseas as well where Japanese carmakers are benefiting from an emerging middle class with a hunger for cars.

In the first quarter of this year, Toyota sold more cars around the world than G.M. 2.35 million versus 2.26 million. Toyota takes the crown from GM after 70 years.

International business professor Sebastian Teunissen at U.C. Berkeley says Toyota didn't set out to dethrone G.M it went about it by focusing on quality.

Sebastian Teunissen, Ph.D. UC Berkeley Professor: "Why focus on the competition in a battle that way? Why not satisfy the customer? I think that's what Toyota has been doing all along. I don't think they've been looking directly at GM or at anybody as a target. They've been going after the market itself."

Now, Toyota and most Japanese automakers have a reputation for quality.

G.M. has improved its quality, but retired U.C. professor Bob Cole says it's not easy for GM to shake off a negative image. Toyota is now facing its own quality issues.

Bob Cole, Ph.D., Retired Sociology Professor: "They are facing quality problems that they haven't had in the past because they're ramping up production so fast, opening up new plants one after another with less Tim to teach people the Toyota principles, so they're actually struggling right now more than most people realize."

Cole is a specialist in quality issues. He worked on assembly lines at two plants in Japan while working on his dissertation. Cole says the u.s. is losing its edge as a manufacturing center as it outsources so much of its production.

Bob Cole, Ph.D.: "This is one more. GM losing its top position is just one more step -- a very symbolic one -- in that direction."

In that direction.

Don't look for political backlash as Japan over-takes an American icon. Toyota employs thousands of American assembly line workers from Texas to Indiana and even here in the bay area, at the Nummi plant in Fremont, a joint venture of Toyota and GM.

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