DETROIT (AFX) - General Motors Corp said it will defend its position as the world's largest automaker despite a strong challenge from Toyota Motor Corp.

'I'm not conceding anything to anybody,' Richard Wagoner, GM's chairman and chief executive officer, said in response to reports that Toyota planned to boost its global production to 9.06 mln units next year.

That figure is just short of GM's forecast production of 9.08 mln vehicles.

The Japanese automaker's annoucement of its 2006 objectives came on the heels a new sales forecast from J.D. Power & Associates that indicated GM was likely to continue to lose market share in December.

GM said in a statement released accompanying Wagoner's remarks that over the past decade, the automaker has become a far leaner, more competitive company operationally.

'We're more globally integrated and better able to take advantage of our size and resources around the world. We're focusing much of our energies on the highest potential growth markets around the world, such as China and Brazil, where we have been very successful,' the GM statement added.

Wagoner also said in a recent interview with Agence France-Presse that the production of GM's new South Korean subsidiary is continuing to grow and could top 700,000 units this year. In addition, GM and its partners also are adding capacity in China, he noted.

Wagoner also noted the auto industry globally has grown more complex.

'It's not a two-team game,' Wagoner in the statement, as he employed a football analogy to describe the intensity of the competition in the industry now.

'It's like everybody in the league is on the field and there's more than one ball, and so we do not focus on just one competitor; we look segment by segment, who's got the product or the best sales and how we can go after them.

'It's down to markets and product segments and our competitive, relative advantages versus everyone else's. That's the way we look at it, and then we add them up at the end of the year. And, you know, the last 74 years when they've added up, we've been No. 1, and I'd love to continue that.'

 

Isnt the Vibe and Matrix and joint venture between GM and Toyota?

Doesn't GM put Honda V6's in the Saturn Vue's?

That's the way to get them GM

 

Good one!

 

I read GM stock hit a near record low lately, due to losing market share to import companies...like Toyota...are they throwing the fight??

 

Did someone say "Rope-a-Dope"?

 

Didn't BMW use GM Automatics?

Doesn't Honda use GM diesels?

 

Hmmm....things get interesting once you get past the black and white rhetoric, doesn't it?

 

To add to this.

Doesn't Fiat and others use GM diesels in europe, technically yes because GM now owns the Fiat/GM 1.3 CDTI?

Isn't Fiat planning on using GM V8s in its US cars in a few years?

Doesn't the Lotus Elise use the 2.0T Ecotec in Europe?

Isn't Ford using a joint venture FWD 6 speed auto in the near future?

Aren't BMW/Mercedes/Chrysler/Hyundai and others trying to get or are going to use the 2 mode hybrid system developed by GM?

 

I like Wagoner when he doesn't like to screw around.

"Quit whining and play the game!"

 

Lotus Elise is using Toyota's 1.8L VVTi engine found in Celica GT-S.

 

correct me if i'm wrong but arent vue's and equinoxes engines built in china?

 

The Vue's optional engine (the 250hp) is a Honda, not sure where that's built. The 3.4 in the Equinox is a GM engine, but I think you're right in that's it's actually built in China.

 

GM isnt going to go down with their tail between their legs...

so... GJ wagonoer... now all we need is some customers to buy these crappy cars...

I just dont understand why people dont buy more GM cars... their are cars for everyone...

 

In the US yes but in the EU I am pretty sure it uses the Ecotec just like the Opel speedster does.

 

Lets back up the words with product.