Toyota Looks To Electric Cars

    Toyota's reported earnings fell due to a number of factors. These include: American consumers shifting their preference of what type of car they buy, and low gas prices in the U.S. With gas prices at all time low in the U.S., americans are buying more trucks and SUV's because they no longer have to worry about the price at the pump. This shift in opinion has led to their extremely popular Prius hybrid to plunge in the U.S. market. While many consumers are leaning toward large trucks and SUVs their is also a spike in electric car sales. Major players like Tesla have become exceedingly popular and many consumers are purchasing their first electric car and ignoring their loyalty to major brands like Toyota.
      What's even more daunting for Toyota is that the consumers lining up for their first Tesla, used to be Toyota's eco friendly clients that once owned Prius's. The Japanese auto maker has a solution but a long road lay ahead for them. Because of their original skepticism of electric-based vehicles due to their practicality and actual feasible mile range, Toyota is behind on their electric car endeavor. Another factor hitting Toyota is the Yen currency strengthening in their country. The Yen becoming stronger makes their brand at home less competitive which is making it harder for them to keep their foot in the automotive market. Toyota's response to the Yen strengthening is to manufacture a larger number of their vehicles and their parts in the U.S.
     The new technology Toyota has spent their time developing instead of electric-cars is their hydrogen-cell based technology. Toyota believes the interest and demand for their hydrogen-based vehicles will increase once consumers become aware of the hydrogen cars having similar milage and recharging times as electric cars. Toyota is already selling their hydrogen-fueled car, the Mirari, in California. However, with the delays in constructing the hydrogen gas stations the Mirari's sales in California have decreased dramatically. This is a dismal sign in as eco-friendly of a state that California is.
     Toyota is remaining hopeful and expects to sell 30,000 hydrogen fuel-cell cars by 2020. This large vehicle sales forecast will happen just in time for Japan's hosting of the 2020 olympics. The 2020 Olympics is when Toyota hopes to showcase their newly developed hydrogen technology.
This article is relevant to our marketing class because it relates to target market and a company trying to have a green, eco-friendly reputation. It also relates to trends in the market shifting a companies previous stance on a issue like electric cars.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-profit-falls-on-strong-yen-weak-u-s-sales-1478586115