Toyota managed to hold onto the title of world's No. 1 automaker last year, despite numerous safety recalls that took a toll on its sales. Toyota sold 8.42 million vehicles worldwide in 2010, enough to barely edge out resurgent General Motors, which rang up sales of 8.39 million.
The economy may be less robust than most Americans would like, but that didn't stop many of them from hitting the showrooms in December. That likely propelled auto sales in the final month of 2010 to 1.13 million units, the year's highest levels.
"Fewer brands means you can put more focus into improving the quality of engineering," CEO Alan Mulally said Monday. The second-largest U.S. automaker has been surging ahead in both sales and honors over the past year.
Toyota is reportedly preparing to recall at least 311,000 2010 Priuses to fix a problem with their brakes. Unlike the mechanical issues which led to the two recent recalls of 8 million Toyotas for unintended acceleration, the problem with the Prius is apparently a software issue.
Once icons of American industrial might, GM and Chrysler have cut jobs, closed plants, eliminated models and shed storied brands. Racing to turn their businesses around, both companies still have a long way to go to convince consumers their products are worthy of consideration.