Word: toyotas
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...Driving around Kabul I came across a British patrol that had just been attacked by a suicide bomber in a Toyota Corolla, wounding two. They were lucky, and it never made the news. I wondered how bad the rest of Afghanistan is, and, as I usually do when I get to a new city, I casually asked around where I could go and couldn't go. Forget Kandahar, I was told. Even heavy armor is vulnerable to the new improvised explosive devices showing up in Afghanistan. Which means that you can't drive to Herat. Nor can you set foot...
...fast is Afghanistan unraveling? Westerners live in heavily protected enclaves, waiting for Armageddon to break out. They look a lot like Crusader castles. Western officials and military venture out only in armored Toyota Land Cruisers, easily recognizable by their electronic counter-measure domes and whip antennas. With no license plates, they barrel down the streets at high speeds, staying ahead of any potential suicide car bombers. They don't stop at police checkpoints - extraterritorial status has its privileges...
...clear. The changes brought about by corporate bosses and government policymakers have had an evident impact--BMW alone has whacked $1.2 billion from its cost structure over the past three years--but it'll be hard to sustain that pace. Global competition shows no sign of letting up. Toyota's Lexus is starting to make inroads into BMW's European turf, while at home, rival Audi is turning up the heat, and Mercedes looks like a formidable competitor once again, now that DaimlerChrysler has agreed to sell off Chrysler to a U.S. private-equity firm...
...degree of customization that is required means BMW isn't as ruthlessly efficient as Toyota in some respects, including the number of cars produced per worker per day. But there's a trade-off. "BMW is not prepared to sacrifice its ability to give consumers the car they want. The alternative would be reduced costs but not the ability to charge a premium for customized cars," says Garel Rhys, an auto-industry expert at Cardiff University. In the end, he says, BMW's marginal revenue from customization is higher than the marginal cost advantage it gives...
...past few years provides some economies of scale, he says. He points out that the firm is also pooling its resources with other manufacturers, developing engines for the Mini together with Peugeot and hybrid-engine components together with Mercedes. Looking around the world, he makes a sharp distinction. Toyota, the world's biggest and most profitable car company, "is strongly process driven," he says. BMW, by contrast, "is more product driven--and I wouldn't want to bet on who will be more successful in 10 years." That's bravado, of course, but in itself such self-confidence...