Inaba told reporters in Detroit he has marching orders from Akio Toyoda, the new head of Toyota worldwide described by Inaba "as even more of a car enthusiast than I am," to fire up passion for vehicles throughout Toyota.
"I'll be careful to choose my words," Inaba chuckled to reporters, "but I can see standing on the sidelines that there is not enough excitement in our vehicles."
Though short on specifics after little more than a week on the job, Inaba said he has particular interest in the Scion and Lexus brands, as he was head of Toyota's U.S. operations when the automaker launched Scion and expanded Lexus' line.
He vows to "revive the Scion spirit." Despite a recent sales plunge, Scion remains a good business model but requires more than its current trio of vehicles and needs more frequent product freshening, Inaba said.
Inaba is exploring how to re-shape Lexus, which has seen dramatic sales drops. "We have to figure out what is Lexus here in the U.S...and what is the next phase of Lexus," he said, adding that doesn't necessarily mean a sales target beyond the current 300,000 annually.
Assembling Scion and Lexus vehicles as well as the Toyota Prius hybrid in North America are possible in the future as well, he said. Toyota wants to boost the percentage of vehicles it builds in North America to more than 60 percent of its North American sales, though he gave no target.
Inside Line says: The end of bland Toyotas? — Michelle Krebs, Editor, Edmunds' AutoObserver.com
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jscion says:
05:27 PM, 04/11/2010
A revival is right!!! And a big one too. All three model lines have become drab, over bloated with the wrong products and too many of them. How many freakin crossovers does Toyota need??? The Celica, Supra, MR2...all important and all about what made Toyota so great. The Camry sucks all around with OK styling and really, really poor workmanship. The Corolla??? The 2009 update of the Corolla/Matrix was the worst update ever in Toyota's history. These two cars went from great to just plain boring. Toyota wants to increase its size and become the big producer of cars but focus must not be lost on product....that is what is now happening. I hope Toyota shapes its self up soon because as a current Scion owner, I think Hyundai is looking alot better!!!