Toyota Trouble: Posts Largest Loss Since 1950

Toyota, which just last year posted record profit and dethroned General Motors as the world's largest automaker, said it was headed for its first annual net loss since 1950.

Toyota's loss of 350 billion yen, or $3.85 billion, was largely due to plunging auto sales and a strong yen that made exporting costlier, its executives said.

Toyota is not the only Japanese company reeling from the global slowdown and the strong yen. While Honda Motor Co., Japan's second-biggest car company, is managing to stay in the black, its profits have sunk 87%. The third biggest Japanese car company, Nissan Motor Co., is reporting earnings today.

Other Japanese companies that are spiraling downward include electronics makers Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp.

Did the Japanese stimulus package work? Read here for more.

Comments

[trincarman]

Hope when import car manufactures come asking for help, those senators who were blowing there horns, would be able to stomach what they were dishing out . Gentlemen be careful what you pray for. Keep on calling Wolf, hope you can deal with it when it shows up. We the Dems have the olive branch.
Remember when you go BLACK you don't turn back.

[CR46]

Maybe Japan can bail them out!!!

[MadamRoma]

Never fear Corker's here, he will save the day. I'll bet Sen "Mercedes" Shelby is already trying to finagle a way to have the good people of Alabama reimburse their foreign "love interest" loses.

Just watch, GM, Ford, and Chrysler will get the crap slapped out of them for doing this heinous deed to Toyota.

[leeman79]

Wait until they start closing down the production plants in the cracker belt. I see a continuing shift from red to blue in the south.

[Clavis]

Damn those unions, always messing up otherwise profitable companies!

[jlgrounds]

I wonder what the Southern Republican Senators will have to say when Toyota goes asking for a loan. That should be an interesting moment since they all said a big "F-U" to Mich, Detroit, etc.

[ThatOne4Me]

the feds should not bailout foreign car makers. but it would be funny to watch the Goopers begging us to bail them out.

[blood1]

I'm with you!

Corker (R) with all his talk may have to change his tune as TOYOTA will close or reduce the plant in TN. The unemployment rate in TN was 7.9% in Dec...what is it today?

His answer today was to hold off on any action! He added absolutely NOTHING to the conversation, his action was NO ACTION!

[emstrem]

Good, I for one am ecstatic at the foreign auto companies woes, and only hope the deepen. For too long the've been the media darlings about how things should be done, all the while hoping that Americans don't find out that they are the ones who instituted the jobs bank program awhile ago.

Ever since the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press went on strike around 1994 and the UAW backed them, they have made it a point to put every Big 3 recall front page news, (even the silent recalls get a lot of press from them), all the while these foreign car companies may get a small blurb in the back of the business section.

I only hope that Toyota does what the writer of this column says and KAMIKAZES.

[Fraugher]

In an effort to overtake GM sales (as a marketing ploy), Toyota practically gave cars away in 2008 (negative profit per car). This is why Honda is in the black and Toyota is in the red. Hope it pays off for Toyota (not really).

[TrooAmerican]

Darn those US UAW unions for being responsible for the economic downturn thats only affecting Domestic businesses, while those non union companies are just rollling in profits and big sales, success and Dont need Japan to deliver an economic stimulus, or bail out, and those European companies didnt get a bailout...­... oh yeah, everyones got the same cold, and those companies DID get bailouts and help from their home countries.

The UAW has never once been the reason for any lack of profitability by the domestic 3 automakers­... not once. While the autoworkers = middle class were getting a $1 more per hour each year in their contracts, the auto execs were raising their own pay, bonuses and stock by tens of millions a year, and giving out billions in dividends to shareholders.

[EinChicago]

The funniest thing is seeing the Toyota sheeple fall all over themselves about the headline.

We get it. Toyota pulled off the biggest con job in history with the Prius, which takes about 10 years to recoup the extra cost and break even with a comparable compact in terms of price and even longer than that to break even in terms of carbon footprint because of the massive amount of carbon used in its manufacture compared to a comparable compact car and the relatively tiny incremental gain it gets in MPG.

And the sheeple fell for it and now cannot bear to see their golden calf criticized, even though, ironically, the photograph for this story shows an FJCruiser, which gets comparable gas mileage to a hummer.


We get it


Baaaaaahhhhh indeed.

[sv90066]

"Kamikaze"as in the cocktail, right?

Did Miley Cyrus come up with that headline?

[Tom95134]

"Toyota Takes Kamikaze Hit," ????

Bad metaphor, who ever wrote this headline better do a bit of research.

[rupert12]

Better yet, they should go back to elementary school and pay attention in history class this time. Any sixth grader could tell you kamikaze is a suicide mission.

Toyota committing suicide while attempting to take out their American "enemies" in the process? I don't think so.

[laborgrunt]

And the Award for the lamest headline goes too.......

[RedRooster]

What are those Southern State Republican Senators gonna do when all those foreign national car plants shut down?

[whatsthatsound]

Later possible headlines:
Renault Surrenders
Daimler Runs out of Gas (Chambers)
Fiat Bombs in Ethiopia
etc.