All Your Manufacturing Plants Are Belong To Us

Hey, Detroit. Make your time. AutoWeek reports: At Capacity.

Jim Press had been listening to all the prattle about whether Toyota would add an eighth North American assembly plant. Finally, he threw up his hands.

"There probably will be an eighth plant," the president of Toyota Motor North America Inc. conceded this month at the Detroit auto show, "and a ninth plant and a 12th plant."

Then he added: "I wouldn't mind 15 plants."

"15! Ha. What, is he smoking crunch?" Bill Ford was not heard to say.

Press wasn't joking. That's about how many plants Toyota will need by the middle of the next decade if its U.S. sales keep growing at the pace of the past 10 years.

"Gulp!" Bill Ford should say. You know, if you add this growth along with the piece about Toyota making cars for cheap, we're talking trouble for Detroit. Heck, trouble for everyone.

Since no one company stays on top forever, what do you think will happen to Toyota to topple them?

Yeah, we're aware that Toyota isn't technically number one, but since it's 100% guaranteed, we're taking it as a given.