Could Lutz be preparing for Plan B at Toyota?
GM exec gives Toyota truck thumbs up (Mike Hunter Take Note)
Lutz, meeting with reporters at the North American International Auto Show, said he was impressed with the new Tundra, which is on display at the show and is now hitting dealer showrooms, and that he has no doubt that Toyota (Charts) will meet its sales target of 200,000 of the vehicles a year.
Detroit auto show highlights "I took a good look at it today," Lutz said. "I think it's a very, very, very well executed large truck. It's got good styling, great interior. It's a very nice truck."
Toyota has had a pickup under the Tundra brand name back to the 1990s, but the truck had never been considered part of the full-size market by U.S. industry standards.
The new Tundra clearly is part of that market, and is a competitor to the new GMT 900 series pickup trucks, such as the Chevrolet Silverado, which debuted last fall, as well as to the Ford F-Series pickup, which is the best-selling U.S. vehicle.
But Lutz said that he believes the new Tundra poses more of a challenge to Japanese automaker Nissan (Charts), which introduced the Titan full-size pickup in December 2003, than it does to GM, Ford Motor (Charts) or DaimlerChrysler. (Charts)
GM tries to change image to Green Motors "My theory is there's a lot of interaction within Japanese brands," Lutz said. "My personal belief is that the other full-size Japanese pickup truck is going to get severely dented in this process.
"Tundra has always had 100,000 to 125,000 sales. So they're going to get
75,000 extra," Lutz continued. "Of that 75,000 extra, I think Nissan is going to be the major furnisher of numbers. That's going to leave 30-40,000 to be split between Dodge, Ford and ourselves. To be honest, I don't think we'll feel it."Lutz has a reputation for being outspoken, and sometimes outrageous, making statements that can stir up the industry and GM (Charts) dealers.
A couple of years ago he stirred a hornets nest at the New York auto show when he referred to Buick and Pontiac as "damaged brands" and suggested that if they didn't get better, GM might need to drop one or more.
Tuesday, in response to a reporter's question, Lutz said he's confident that GM will not be dropping any brands. But when asked if he was ready to declare that Buick and Pontiac are no longer damaged, he would not give them or other GM brands a clean bill of health.
"Damage is such a negative term. But let us say, clearly neither General Motors nor any of General Motors' brands are in the minds of the American public where we believe we now deserve to be based on the excellence of our product. It's what I call the reputational whack."
GM sweeps auto show honors He said until GM starts hearing from more customers that they are not shopping at competitors and coming to GM because of the quality of the product, "we have to tell ourselves, 'There's still a lot more work to do.'"
Asked how far GM was from that point, he responded, "I'd say we're at the end of the beginning."
-- The brave might not live forever but the timid do not live at all