Truck Divisions to Merge - doubt anything good would come out

https://1truck.us/toyota-and-daimle...its-positioning-industry-for-future-mobility/

Our yota's will continue to evolve no doubt. Nothing good could come out of this one. Let's see what the gang here has to say. Keep your units healthy boys and girls!

 

I know I've seen some Hino and Mitsubishi Fuso trucks around but I doubt there will be any results (better or worse) visible to us consumers/those who don't work around the commercial medium/heavy-duty truck area.

 

Consolidation like this, in my opinion, is primarily meant to serve the financial goals of business entities. It is what it is, you can’t force entities to spend money where they don’t want to.

However, the reduced competition in the marketplace will eventually translate into less options for the customer, and and fewer businesses innovating and creating products. Ironically, I believe this type of consolidation is the natural end-result of highly competitive markets. Here you had three major players, that in time turned into one.

Don’t get me started on the use of term “mobilty” in this article. Seems like every vehicle manufacturer is dying to a avoid being told they actually manufacture physical durable products. They’d rather present themselves as providers of “mobility services”, since it allows them to say that their core business is anything they think intersects with movement of a thing from one place to another. To provide a “better” service, they can sell us on “only paying for what we use” via subscription plans for anything and everything, maintainance service agreements, financial services, insurance, and throw in data sales to improve our “experience”. BLEH!!!! It’s bullshit that will end up destroying our ability to privately own anything.

edit to add: I suppose that young whippersnappers will soon need to be explicitly taught why private ownership is a good thing, despite the potential day to day inconveniences it may bring. To spell it out, private ownership of property is good for the individual because it allows you to retain control of the thing you bought. In contrast, services, renting, and leasing are almost always more expensive in the long run, and are almost completely subject to the whims of others.

 

Meh, this kind of incestuous equity cross-holding where Toyota and Daimler each owns 25% of the new Hino-Fuso company is very common with Japanese companies. It's like Toyota owning 20% of Subaru or 34% of Denso. Hell, Toyota Canada is 51%/49% owned by Toyota and Mitsui. Hino has no effect on Toyota light trucks and SUVs aside from assembling a portion of Land Cruisers on contract. If tomorrow Toyota sells off a portion of Daihatsu or Aichi Steel, why do you give a damn?

 

If it’s common with japanese companies, I wonder if that’s part of a national strategy to ensure some level of overall financial stability and health of japanese heavy industry. That would make a certain amount of sense.

 

Japan is long gone from its heyday of the late 1980s. Today if a foreign firm wants to inject capital into its corporations Japanese government (which has heavy oversight on light industries) they will take it. The Koreans had been chipping away at Japanese cars' market share around the globe, and the race to transition to EVs has the Chinese firms further eroding Japanese brands' market share since Japan has even less access to rare earth metals and battery material than the US. Frankly they are currently just trying to tread water and make sure their post war baby boomers die with dignity as much as possible, then figure it out after that.

 

Yes the cross-holding of equity was intended for financial stability. In the case of trucks, "foreign" input from Daimler may be a good thing as Toyota can't seem to make an emissions compliant diesel engine without cheating.

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/hi...ead-guilty-and-pay-over-16b-resolve-emissions

https://www.reuters.com/business/au...n-engine-emissions-cheating-nikkei-2024-02-19