"Inaba acknowledged that Toyota vehicles had often lacked "passion" and that the company's vehicles must be "more exciting, more nimble."
"Toyota is a good car but not exciting. Those are the comments we usually (or) always get," Inaba said.
Toyota's sales have fallen 38 percent in the first six months of the year -- to 770,000 cars and trucks from nearly 1.25 million vehicles in the first six months of 2008. U.S. industry auto sales fell 35 percent in the first half of the year.