Toyota Motor (NYSE: TM) CEO Akia Toyoda spent most of the company’s annual meeting today trying to gain back shareholder trust and explain how the Japanese automaker will regain its footing.

“I apologize deeply for the concerns we have caused,” he said according to a number of media sources. “We believe our most important task is to regain customers’ trust.”For Toyota and Toyoda, it may be too late. The company may become profitable again and regain a modest part of its reputation. But its sales have already begun to flag in the US since it stopped aggressively offering incentives. Its ratings in the JP Power survey were mediocre. The company was at the top of the quality list for years. US sales in March and April may have caused the firm and analysts to believe that its reputation had quickly improved. Customers were actually turning their backs on the company.

Toyota’s greatest rivals may no longer be GM, VW, Honda Motor (NYSE: HMC), and Ford (NYSE: F). Each of these companies is well established in the US and most mature markets. The Chinese market is dominated by VW and GM. The fight for market share in the People’s Republic will be fierce. Toyota was late to market and it recalls in China have hurt its prospects.

Just as Toyota took the auto growth prize from the Americans and Europeans, South Korean car companies such as Hyundai have become Toyota’s greatest rivals. The are now what the Japanese car firms were a generation ago-the low-cost, higher quality providers.

Toyoda’s apologies to US customers, his own employees, the US Congress, and now his shareholders may be too little too late.  There are no signs things will improve for the beleaguered automaker anytime soon.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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