On Top of the Pile: Toyota is now world’s largest automaker.

[insert: "I for one welcome our new ____ overlords" meme here ...]

I can’t believe I didn’t post to mention this. It’s pretty simple. GM, the world’s largest carmaker since the 1930s, was outsold in 2008. GM sold 8.35 million vehicles to Toyota’s 8.97 million.

It’s not surprising in the least. Toyota has been expected to pull ahead of GM for a long time, considering that GM has subsisted for at least 50 years on lazy and regressive business practices, marketing flops, and convincing Americans to buy huge cars and trucks. Toyota, meanwhile, has a business model that is widely emulated in the corporate world. And they sell darn good cars. (OK, they’re a little boring, but the Corolla is the best selling car nameplate in history, and they sell most of their cars like hotcakes. Or at least they did before the economy went in the drink.)

(Source: New York Times)