While much of the auto world's attention was fixed on the Paris Motor Show, US manufacturers were keeping an eye on the Texas state fair that opened on Friday, where Toyota Motor Co was rolling out a new pickup truck.
Texas is ground zero in the pickup wars that are about to break out across the broad US landscape.
Thus, representatives from General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and German-US DaimlerChrysler AG were all on hand for the annual State Fair of Texas in Dallas, which has become of the biggest stages for new pickup trucks.
PHOTO: AP
The critical segment accounts for 14 percent of all new vehicle sales in the US and pickups remain the vehicle of choice in the wide-open landscapes of the west and south of the country.
Pickup trucks are sold all over the world and compact pickup trucks are immensely popular in places such as Southeast Asia and South Asia, according to Ron Harbour of Harbour and Associates of Troy, Michigan.
However, the larger full-size pickup trucks remain a uniquely US vehicle and Toyota has tried, with only limited success, to master the formula.
So far this year Toyota, even though it was headed for record sales and seemed likely to replace the Chrysler Group as the number-three seller of vehicles in the US, had sold by the end of August a paltry 79,000 full-size pickup trucks.
Meanwhile, Nissan Motor Co has been unable to reach the annual sales of 100,000 that the Japanese automaker's executives had confidently predicted when its truck was launched two years ago.
Toyota, however, is nothing if not persistent and it has built a brand-new factory dedicated to full-size pickup trucks deep in the heart of Texas.
Once the new plant in San Antonio is fully operational, Toyota expects to sell as many as 200,000 pickups annually, according to Brian Smith, Toyota corporate manager for truck operations.
The plant is scheduled to open next month and dealers are slated to begin selling the trucks in February.
Toyota also is planning its largest advertising campaign ever in the US to promote the new Texas-built version of the Tundra.
Smith added Toyota was leaving nothing to chance. The new Toyota Tundra was specifically designed to match the popular trucks offered by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler Group.
"This is a truck that was designed in America with Americans in mind," Smith said.
Sean McAlinden of the Center For Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said on Friday that the US truck makers were prepared to defend their turf vigorously. GM alone has set aside close to US$500 million to market its new trucks, he said.
GM publicly unveiled its new Chevrolet Silverado at the Texas fair. The new Silverado is the best truck GM has ever built, according to Gary White, the GM executive in charge of truck development.
"Our full-size pickups, as our highest-volume products, are the most important component of the most important part of our North American turnaround plan," Rich-ard Wagoner, GM chairman and chief executive, said recently.
Mark Fields, Ford executive vice president and the head of the company's operations in North and South America, said that Ford's turnaround plan also hinges on the company's continued success in the pickup truck market.
Thus, Ford rolled out the Super-Duty pickup, which is specifically designed for contractors working in heavy construction.
"The F-Series is an essential part of our core business, and we will do whatever it takes to stay number one in full-size trucks," Fields said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six