As Toyota and Hummer have learned, growing too fast can be a dangerous thing.
From its origins, success in the auto industry has been about scale. In the early decades of the 20th century, Henry Ford was able to democratize the car and dominate the early auto industry because he built, and then continually improved, an assembly line that could make huge numbers of cars in a short amount of time. Bigger was always better.
But two items from yesterdays dispatch in the ongoing car dramas indicate why thats not always true.
Item No. 1: The Toyota debacle . The mass failings of Toyotas legendary quality-control efforts are now on full display in the hearings that have subjected CEO Akio Toyoda to a ritualized set of apologies and humiliations . In recent years Toyota rode its efficiency and better financial management it didnt have to contend with the burdensome pension and health-care benefits that sandbagged the Big Three to large gains in market share and significant growth. In 2007 Toyota surpassed GM as the largest carmaker in the world.
But something got lost in the process. As Toyoda acknowledged on Wednesday: I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick. I would like to point out here that Toyotas priority has traditionally been: first, safety; second, quality; and third, volume. These priorities became confused. In other words, Toyoda seemed to admit, the company went wrong by moving size i.e., volume to the front of the line.
Item No. 2: After a series of failed efforts to sell it, GM announced that its Hummer brand would be wound down. Hummer had a different problem with bigness than Toyota has. It wasnt that its production volumes were too high. In 2008 only 2,710 Hummers were sold. Rather, the outsize Hummer was simply too big too inefficient, too out of step with the times to succeed in a marketplace in which oil spiked to $150 per barrel and seems to have settled at a plateau above $70 a barrel. As the economy tanked, energy prices rose, and the spirit of the time shifted in favor of conservation, the gas-guzzling Hummer faced a double whammy : consumers had difficulty affording the vehicles high list price as well as difficulty affording its high operating price.
Size does matter when it comes to auto production. But not always in the way manufacturers think.
47. The example of Henry Fords assembly line suggests that the success in the auto industry was built on__________ .
48. According to the author, Toyotas fast growth in recent years was attributed to__________ .
49. CEO Akio Toyoda seemed to admit that Toyota betrayed its tradition of putting __________at top priority.
50. According to the passage, GM decided to gradually bring its Hummer brand to an end because of __________ .
51. According to the passage, whether purchasing or operating a Hummer, consumers found it hard to __________ .
参考答案：
47. scale 48. its efficiency and better financial management 49. safety
50. a series of failed effort to sell it 51. afford the high prices
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