The good news for Toyota is that profits are back and last year is in the rear-view mirror. People are actually looking for things like a Toyota Tacoma for sale. But, the competition is more fierce than ever before and not just in North America but around the world as well. Toyota can’t bank on reliability alone to sell cars and trucks as the gap is tight with their rivals. It appears they got the memo and are starting to produce some better looking vehicles which should help the bottom line even more.

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. predicts surging North American sales will deliver its highest profit in five years, as the carmaker rapidly rebounds from last year’s natural disasters.

North American sales are seen climbing 25 percent to 2.35 million vehicles in the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2013.

Sales in Toyota’s second-biggest market slid 7.8 percent to 1.87 million units in the just-ended fiscal year, as an earthquake in Japan and flooding in Thailand crimped supply. But North America remained one of the company’s more profitable regions despite the decline and is poised for growth.

Revived North American sales will power Toyota to near record global sales of 8.7 million vehicles this fiscal year, Japan’s largest carmaker said today in its annual earnings presentation.

Toyota’s worldwide sales peaked at 8.91 million vehicles, on a fiscal year basis, in the 12 months ended March 31, 2008.

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Things change fast in the U.S. Auto Industry as it looks like it’s now Chrysler, Hyundai-Kia , Toyota and VW’s time to shine in 2012. GM and Ford are down in share for the year but they both have some strong product coming out that could put them back in the black when it comes to market share.

From the Detroit News:

General Motors Co.’s sales in the U.S. were down 8.2 percent for April as Ford Motor Co. reported last month’s U.S. sales were down, too, by 5 percent. Meanwhile, Chrysler Group LLC said Tuesday its sales were up 20 percent last month, making for its best April in four years.

GM sales were down to 213,387 primarily due to a 25 percent drop in fleet sales that the automaker said was because of the timing of rental customer deliveries. The company said its retail sales were essentially flat. GM also pointed out that April 2012 had three fewer selling days than the same month a year ago — only the second time that has occurred in the past 10 years.

GMC posted a sales increase of 4.5 percent during the month, driven by a 20 percent increase in sales of the GMC Sierra pickup and a 9 percent jump for the GMC Terrain crossover. Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac all saw total sales fall during April compared to the same month a year earlier.

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After three years of being bested by Toyota, General Motors is once again the world’s best selling automaker. General Motors sold 9,025,942 in 2011, a 7.6 percent increase over last year’s figures. General Motors even bested Volkswagen, who have made it a public goal to become the biggest automaker on the block. Toyota trailed both GM and VW though, whose sales dropped 6 percent in 2011.

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This comes a bit late but better late than never!

From AutoGuide.com:

Toyota is taking product development authority away from Japanese bosses and putting it in the hands of North American executives as part of a larger change aimed at fixing quality control issues that hurt the automaker’s reputation last year.

Until now, vehicles produced and designed and developed in North America had to be approved by chief engineers in Japan. Vehicles unique to the North American market such as the Venza, Sienna, Avalon, Tacoma and Tundra will no longer require painstaking and frustrating sign-offs from Japan at each step of the development processes.

“We are going to implement the process from design to preparation for production to development, cost planning, and identifying and selecting suppliers,” said Inaba, CEO of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. “All these processes are going to be 100 percent done here, without going back to Japan for approval.”

The changes come too late to affect the development of the redesigned 2012 Toyota Camry due this fall, however upcoming models based in North America, such as the next Tundra pickup, will see the result of the new structure.

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From the Detroit Free Press:

Toyota will begin cranking up its North American factories faster than expected, returning to 70% of normal production in June as it rebounds from parts shortages caused by the earthquake in Japan.

The company cut production to about 30% of normal in May by idling factories for several days or reducing their hours. It warned dealers to expect shortages of some models well into the summer.

But Toyota said Wednesday that the parts situation is improving as supply companies take measures to counter the effects of the quake.

A March 11 earthquake and tsunami damaged auto parts plants in northeastern Japan, causing shortages that have affected nearly all automakers but have hit Toyota and Honda especially hard.

Toyota said in a statement that it would evaluate production for each model every month, and it may not return to fully normal production until late this year.

Next month, though, Toyota will move to 100% production of eight models in North America. They include the Avalon large car, Camry midsize car, Corolla compact, Highlander SUV, Matrix small car, Sequoia large SUV, Sienna minivan and Venza crossover vehicle, Toyota said in a statement.

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