Sales are booming for the hybrid maker Toyota. They say sales are up for all their vehicles, including SUVs, but I find it particularly interesting that they are now talking about making over 300,000 hybrids a year. Just a couple years ago they were tepid about making less than 50,000 a year, concerned that the market would be small or fail to evolve. Now the news is that the company is firing on all eight batteries:

Japanese car firm Toyota has seen its vehicle sales soar in September, compared to a year earlier, in sharp contrast to those of its US rivals. The car firm saw year-on-year sales rise 20%, helped by sales of passenger cars…

[…]

Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) and trucks – traditionally major businesses for US car firms – have lost their appeal in recent months with rising oil prices.

This trend was confirmed by Ford’s results, which saw car sales rise by 26.2% for the period – while sales of its trucks declined by 5.5%.

Also interesting is that the US companies are now even talking about taking bonuses back from executives:

After a board meeting on Tuesday, GM said it would change its bylaws to require that executives return bonuses or incentive compensation, should the firm restate its financial results.

On what strange computer did they figure bonuses when their company was headed for major headaches? Is this like the captain of the Titanic pushing for more speed as he boasted of the ships resiliance to disaster? Were the numbers simply wrong, or was GM and Ford management unable to understand the warning signs?