The recent success at Subaru is leading its company President, Yasuyuki Yoshinaga to worry whether the niche maker of all-wheel-drive vehicles is getting too big. “We’re standing at a major turning point for Subaru,” Yoshinaga said in an interview last week in Tokyo. “It shouldn’t just be about volumes. We should be making cars only Subaru can make that are a little more expensive and more profitable than the competition.” Debates are raging internally whether to expand Subaru’s lineup of cars, make a push for cheaper vehicles for markets such as India or stay with their current lineup the company sells well, Yoshinaga said.
Executives at the company, which counts Toyota Motor Corp. as its biggest shareholder, will begin discussions this month through next year to determine the long-term direction of the Tokyo-based company, he said. “Some people in the company may want to make mass-market products or cheaper cars, but is this really the right direction for Subaru?” Yoshinaga said. “We’re not a carmaker that can grow as big as Toyota. And even if we could, reaching that sort of scale would mean we’d stop being Subaru.”
