Welcome to today's edition of the Daily 5.
Purchasing chiefs are probably one of the most powerful yet unheralded executives at any automaker. They control tens of billions of dollars in spending and wield enormous influence over thousands of suppliers. An automaker's quality and innovation goals depend on a well-managed purchasing operation.
At Toyota Motor North America, Bob Young has delivered the goods for years, helping the automaker top General Motors in U.S. sales for the first time in 2022 and playing a key role in keeping Toyota atop supplier relations rankings for years.
As Larry P. Vellequette reports today, Young, 57, is retiring from his post as group vice president, purchasing supplier development, on March 28 after 30 years with the automaker. Ryan Grimm, 48, vice president of parts and materials procurement under Young, will succeed him effective Dec. 1, Toyota said.
Young is a rare story in a business filled with purchasing chiefs who are tasked by their CEO bosses with squeezing suppliers for price cuts and other concessions. Some automakers don't hesitate to litigate with their suppliers, but we never see those kinds of stories about Toyota.
Toyota also made news today for a somewhat surprising 5.5 percent drop in U.S. sales last month while the overall market is expected to rise by double digits. Of the five automakers that reported October sales today, Toyota was the only one to post a decline. Toyota said the drop stemmed from the recently ended stop sale of the Grand Highlander three-row crossover, as well as sharp declines from the 4Runner SUV and Highlander crossover.
In other news, Mike Martinez digs deeper into Ford Motor Co.'s third-quarter financial results, which showed more about the automaker's ongoing struggles with cost cutting. Wall Street has been beating up Ford shares all week following the report, but analysts such as Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas still saw some good news.
"Investors may struggle to see the silver linings from Ford's 3Q," Jonas wrote in an Oct. 29 investor note. "Fiscal year 2025 consensus will likely continue to fall as Ford needs to show more progress on factors within its control — specifically inventory reduction and cost improvement."
Also today, Pete Bigelow reports on the auto industry's very real move into developing humanoid robots. This isn't science fiction any more, folks.
Meanwhile, we have full earnings coverage today of Magna International, Cooper-Standard and Credit Acceptance Corp. While both Magna and Cooper-Standard dealt with challenging supplier environments, the news was much better at bruised credit lender Credit Acceptance. The company now carries a record amount of loans on its books and net income grew 11 percent in the quarter.
Monday, we're going to take a look at the struggles faced by first-time and small auto dealerships in getting floorplan loan approvals.
That's it for today. Have a great weekend!
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— Philip Nussel, online editor
