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Toyota admits cars are boring, must change to compete with other cars
This is a good thing. Glad they finally woke up, before its too late like GM did in the 90's.


Toyota, Eschewing Sedate Design, Is Ready for Pizazz
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOYOTA CITY, Japan — After decades of emphasizing staid reliability, Toyota wants to start running with the cool kids.

In a new approach announced Monday, the company, Japan’s biggest automaker, said it was overhauling its development system to give engineers more freedom to experiment with bolder, more daring designs.

“We want to take more risks,” Akio Toyoda, the automaker’s chief executive and grandson of the company’s founder, told reporters Monday at the main design lab at headquarters here in Toyota City, 200 miles southwest of Tokyo.

The company will give more power to its engineers, Mr. Toyoda said, and streamline design decisions, partly by reducing the number of executives involved in reviewing new designs. Previously, design changes could be reviewed by up to 100 executives.

But the engineers will be under pressure to cut costs by using standard parts across different models, Mr. Toyoda said at a briefing at the tightly guarded lab, where reporters’ cellphones and cameras were confiscated.

Toyota will also cede more research and development for emerging-economy nations to locally based teams, allowing designers to shape models specifically to local tastes, he said.

In many ways, Toyota is eager to reinvent itself after three disastrous years marred by problems of its own making as well as those beyond its control. A collapse in trade during the global economic crisis contributed to Toyota’s biggest loss ever, while widespread product recalls in 2009 tarnished its once-stellar safety record.

More recently, last year’s tsunami in Japan and flooding in Thailand crimped production for months. And a strong yen continues to weigh on the company’s competitiveness and bottom line.

But the 75-year-old company is also trying to refresh a design philosophy that has focused more on function, cost and efficiency than form.

Take the Camry, the sensible grocery-getter. Despite its status as the best-selling car in North America, its design has long been the butt of jokes.

“Common descriptors thrown around include ‘appliance,’ ‘beige’ and ‘boring,’ ” a 2011 review by Motor Trend magazine said.

Tokuo Fukuichi, who was named Toyota’s chief designer last year, said that the lackluster design was the product of a consensus-driven process that tried to please everybody and therefore excited no one.

“For someone to passionately like a design, we have to be prepared for some people to hate it,” Mr. Fukuichi said.

The restyled Avalon could be one example. Designers based in the United States had free rein to revamp the sedan, which Toyota introduced at the New York Auto Show last week. Revisions like a trapezoidal grille and wraparound taillights have greatly changed the feel of the vehicle, reviewers said.

At the auto show, Toyota’s group vice president for the United States, Bob Carter, described Mr. Toyoda’s elation on seeing the remodeled Avalon: “Cool! Don’t change a thing.”

Another change Toyota designers talk about is the increasingly central role the Prius gas-electric hybrid is playing in propelling vehicle development at the automaker. Once developed almost completely separately from Toyota’s other cars, many designs original to the Prius, like its low-rolling-resistance tires that help improve fuel efficiency, are now shared with other models.

And in an approach uncharacteristic of Toyota — where executives talk obsessively of listening to customer feedback — Mr. Toyoda said that designers at the company would be encouraged to push ahead without much user input.

“Design should not be a problem of simply making what customers tell you to make,” Mr. Toyoda said.

Asked whether the Toyota design process might soon resemble that of Apple — a company famous for shunning market research in favor of its own designers’ tastes and preferences — Mr. Toyoda was thoughtful.

“Yes, I do think we are headed more in that direction,” he said. “We need to be more visionary.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/business...izazz.html?_r=2

This post has been edited by SupraKid: Apr 10, 2012 - 10:49 PM

Glad to hear. Maybe there is hope for a new Celica and Supra after all...

risk = speed & power! hahahahahah

this is good news. one reason hyundai has been doing really good is that there are fewer executives to confirm decisions within the company. their engineers have more power in this respect. when more people are involved with making decisions, the more conservative the final design ends up being. engineers want to build and design something great but its sad that once the idea passes through the hands of a big committee of boring executives to finalize decisions, all hope goes down the drain.

This post has been edited by azian_advanced: Apr 10, 2012 - 11:45 PM

Toyota must take the best of the NA model Miata, and try to mimic handling as much as possible. Down to a T if possible. Then, stick a nicely balanced I4 in it, give it some VVT-i technology and make it the new Redtop. Power to weight goal of the S2k, whilst maintaining NA-like handling. And then have the design team for the LFA and GT-86 come together and make the thing be pretty to look at and what not.

TAKE MY MONEY NAOW

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Apr 11, 2012 - 9:06 AM

I still want to see a new Celica though, I possibly could afford one of those.

I'm perfectly fine with this. Even if there is no new Celica, Supra, MR2, or anything else, at least we'll see a change in their products. Toyota of 2012 is a bland company and they're so worried about not stepping on any toes that they've forgotten to make people like them. Pair this with the article Andrew posted about Toyota's possible entry back into WRC and we might finally have a company to be excited about again.

They got pretty close with the FR-S, no? Or you're saying that you'd rather have the real Toyota I4 in it instead of a German inspired Subaru H4

Well yes, true. Further judgment withheld until a test drive is done. I guess a GT-86 roadster would do as well.

I read somewhere about the FR-S that its platform would support a convertible, and also the body could be lengthened. So, maybe if the FR-S/BRZ sells well we'll see a convertible version.

This post has been edited by Box: Apr 11, 2012 - 2:26 PM

also ^this.

Hell yeah dude, 98% of the cars on the road today are boring. Toyota is the #1 auto-maker in sales so what do they have to lose? Definately not their self respect, theyll get that back in like 2 seconds

If sudden unintended acceleration didn't ruin their reputation, I don't see how intended acceleration can.

I still dont understand how the drivers couldnt get their cars under control. I mean between the brakes, the gearshifter, the ignition key, the e brake, the guard rails on the side of the road and just plain ditching the car literally, you think that someone would be able to stop their car. Guess you dont have to worry about it when your a real man and drive a stick.

^ even then, its a prius.. its not like it can really gain that kind of speed that fast... i would think that over the course of 5 miles one would have realized going from 60 mph to 80 or 90 mph.. just sayin, ive always thought that ppl who buy and drive a prius can't b all that smart. and that event only further supported my opinion....

Car accelerating uncontrollably.... What do I do..... *looks at ignition switch* Nah, that's not it....

the new avalon looks pretty good. im thinking about paying off my 12' corolla s early so i can check one out later this fall. im excited in the direction they are going and am looking forward to their future line of cars!

Sorry Mr Toyoda but I do not belive till I see... Toyota as brand lives in another world. I had chance to see it in Geneva Motor Show this year. They are great in making stunning high-tech concepts but when offering something "real to buy" it is desperate. Comparing with other brands they totally lost "spark" or how to call it. And not talking about totally insane prices of parts. When I compare what I get for my money from Toyota and from other brands it is sad. The same category of car I can buy cheaper anywhere else or for the same money I get more power, space and mostly also better design than with Toyota.

So I say it few years already and what I see here do not changed my mind at all: my next car will not be Toyota for sure. And I can name other five brands/models that definitely got my attention better than anything what Toyota makes now. And you know Mr. Toyoda... it is not because of design.

This post has been edited by malpaso: Apr 13, 2012 - 2:38 AM