The tipping point, insiders say, was when data from the first quarter of this year showed Tesla’s Model Y had usurped Toyota’s Corolla to become the world’s bestselling car. That’s when what Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe had earlier called “Tesla shock” truly hit home in Nagoya—when Toyota, the company whose lean production manufacturing techniques changed the way automobiles are built, realized it faced a threat as existential as the Toyota Production System had been to Detroit’s Big Three in the 1980s.
The Tesla threat is twofold. First and most obvious is the fact Toyota is late to the EV party. Thanks to its pioneering work with hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains, the company has a lot of experience with electric motors and batteries, but for years execs maintained that pure EVs are not the silver bullet that will secure the future of global automobility. There is some logic to their argument, but as Model Y sales numbers show, they can no longer deny the reality that EVs are a major vehicle segment.
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2023 GMC Canyon
MC, the luxe-truck division of General Motors, has long struggled to differentiate its products from mechanically similar Chevrolets.
2023 Ford F-Series Super Duty
The heavy-duty truck world moves more slowly than other pickup classes, and progress comes in spurts. Take the Ford F-Series Super Duty, whose recent refresh included softer-edged styling, a new entry-level gas-fed V-8, a new high-output 6.7-liter turbodiesel V-8, and myriad small improvements like new bedside steps. Is it still basically the same truck as before? Absolutely, but it’s also a better Super Duty, however incrementally.
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When Chevrolet unveiled its all-new 2020 Silverado HD lineup, it set the truck world ablaze, and not in a good way.
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Was there ever any doubt? MotorTrend readers are largely American, and as much as we love Jeeps, Mustangs, and F-150s in this country, the Corvette has been “America’s sports car” for nearly as long as this publication has existed. That’s why you chose it via our online vote as the most iconic car of the past 75 years.
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