Toyota CEO hints Tesla has a lot to learn from Japanese company
At the dawn of the Tesla business, Toyota was a shareholder and technology partner of a young American company along with Daimler, but then the automakers parted ways. Last week, the head of Toyota paid tribute to Tesla’s ability to work with investors, but did not negate his own successes in organizing production.
Comments of the president of Toyota Motor Corporation Akio Toyoda from the quarterly reporting conference are quoted by CNBC resources. He had to answer questions from investors about Toyota’s plans to confront emerging electric car makers, among which Tesla was mentioned. On the one hand, the head of Toyota admitted that Tesla has no equal in terms of capitalization ($ 400 billion) – all seven of the largest Japanese automakers taken together cost less than one Tesla. The American company, according to Toyoda, not only enjoys the phenomenal trust of investors but also knows how to competently manage financial flows, as well as create advanced software.
But when it came to assessing Tesla’s work culture and overall organizational issues, the head of Toyota was blunt: “They still haven’t created a real business in the real world. ” If you summarize all those florid metaphors used by Akio Toyoda, it turns out that Tesla resembles a gourmet restaurant that still sells only recipes, while Toyota at the same time sells ready-made meals to millions of consumers.
About 100 million Toyota cars are currently in use on the roads of the planet. In this fiscal year alone, the company expects to sell about 7.5 million vehicles, while Tesla is able to offer no more than 500 thousand electric vehicles of four models. Toyota’s “menu”, meanwhile, includes a huge number of models with internal combustion engines, hybrid power plants, as well as with hydrogen fuel cells. Toyota has only recently embarked on the production of purebred electric vehicles’ intangible quantities, have created a joint venture with the Chinese company BYD, which also produces traction batteries.
By the way, the Japanese company produces the second generation of the electric version of the RAV4 crossover in cooperation with Tesla, so the companies have maintained partnerships. Automotive demand in the last quarter began to return to growth, which allowed Toyota to double its forecast for operating profit for the current fiscal year, which ends by April, to $ 12.6 billion.
