After the 2007 US automobile sales figure were tallied last week, it was confirmed that Toyota supplanted Ford for the #2 position. So, the new Big 3 automakers in the US are: GM, Toyota, and then Ford. Ford’s US sales continued its double-digit declines with a 12% fall to 2.5M units. A big chunk of the sales decline came as a result of Ford killing off the venerable Taurus model that was essentially sold only to fleet operators (i.e. rental companies, corporate fleets, etc.). Moves such as this by Ford were part of its larger plan to cut fleet sales in 2007 with the intention of improving resale value. Toyota was up 2% to 2.7M units. Meanwhile, GM’s sales were down 6% to 3.8M units. Although it would seem that GM has a comfortable lead over Toyota, industry experts are already speculating that it may not be long before Toyota takes over GM to become the #1 US automaker. My question: Is Toyota’s race to be #1 the cause of the company’s recent reliability issues? Many have speculated that the unusually high number of recalls reported in the new Tundra were a direct result of Toyota rushing to bring the truck to market.