While Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda is on the cusp of a record year for profit, kids nowadays make him nervous. They're so clueless that boys without cars have the nerve to ask girls out.
"In the past, if you wanted to date someone, you couldn't ask her out if you didn't have a car," Toyoda, 57, told a packed auditorium of about 900 Meiji University students in Tokyo on Sept. 26. "It's all changed now. Money goes on monthly phone bills. Also, parking's expensive and it's easy to get around Tokyo on public transport."
Though he's kidding about the dating, the underlying theme is no joke. Among the biggest conundrums facing automakers: how to make cars cool again. Japan's aging population makes the mission more critical, with sales of passenger vehicles more than 20 percent down from their 1990 highs and the proportion of drivers in their 20s at half the level of Toyoda's generation when they reached driving age.