현재 Detroit 에서 열리고 있는 세계 자동차 쇼에서, 일본의 도요타가 현대차가 앞으로 위협적인 존재가 될것이라고 엄살아닌, 속내를 보인기사이군요. 현대가 도요타를 모방해서, 저렴한 가격으로 시장에 출시하는 바람에 큰 위협이 된다는군요. 그러나 도요타는 현대차의 저렴한 가격과 경쟁하는식의 판매는 사양하겠다고 하기도 하고요. 어쨋던 현대차가 국제 무대에서 각광을 받고 있는, 끊임없는 발전에 교민으로서는 찬사를 보내지 않을수 없음을 깊이 느낍니다. Toyota: Hyundai is a real threat in U.S. By stealing Toyota's playbook, Korean automaker is making gains on the Japanese giant in the states. January 11, 2006: 11:38 AM EST DETROIT (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp., one of the world's most successful automakers, claims to be afraid of a lot of things: complacency, competition, and success itself. But in the United States, rival Hyundai Motor Co. may well be at the top of Toyota's list. "We're worried about them," Yukitoshi Funo, chairman of Toyota Motor Sales USA, told reporters in Detroit this week. "Our main competitors here are essentially Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and Hyundai, but Hyundai is the one we are very carefully watching," he said on the sidelines of the North American International Auto Show here. South Korea's top automaker, until recently a target of jokes about broken-down parts, has dramatically raised its profile on the world stage with a benchmark study by research firm J.D. Power showing an improvement in quality to match the best Japanese brands. Hyundai now sells far more cars than Volkswagen AG, Mazda Motor Corp. and Subaru in the U.S. It expects sales to rise more than 10 percent this year to over 500,000 units, in an overall market that it reckons will shrink. In 2005, Hyundai's sales fell 7.7 percent to 418,615 units, giving it a market share of 2.5 percent. "The quality story is resonating," Bob Cosmai, chief executive officer of Hyundai Motor America, told Reuters at the Detroit show. "We're broadening the depth of our product line, and it's a great value story. When I joined the company at the end of 1990 we sold 90,000 cars, so we're making our presence really known." Unveiling the remodeled Santa Fe sport utility vehicle at the show, Cosmai said its popular model would be priced "thousands of dollars" below a comparably equipped Toyota Highlander with six airbags, electronic stability control and other advanced safety features. As Cosmai admits, Hyundai's path to success has been modeled closely on Toyota's strategy of striving for top quality and competitive prices, and appealing to a broad range of customers with wide-ranging cars. That's what worries Toyota most. "Honda and Nissan are also formidable rivals, but they have a distinct business approach and profile from us," Toyota's Funo said. "Hyundai, meanwhile, is essentially doing what we're doing." But Funo added that Toyota would not and could not compete with Hyundai on prices, and would instead focus on building its brand and value. "Our costs aren't as low as Hyundai's. We don't want to compete on their terms," he said. His Hyundai counterpart, meanwhile, seemed to be adopting Toyota's characteristic modesty when asked how the South Korean company stacked up. "I'm not sure anyone's a big threat to Toyota right now," Cosmai said. "They're a very successful company," he said, adding that Hyundai benchmarked much of its processes and design characteristics around Toyota. "We have a long way to go." More news and cars from the Detroit Auto Show