Toyota’s rise to the top of the world as the seller of the world’s largest number of cars has been the result of top quality manufacturing practices and diligence. The car maker rose when the others such as General Motors and Ford were declining and overtook every other car company including Volkswagen and became world no.1. But nature (read that as the now infamous tsunami) and the near nuclear melt down in Japan have undone the hard work that Toyota had done carefully over a number of years. Due to the cuts in production globally, Toyota is unlikely to remain on the top for long. Toyota itself has said that it may take up to another eight months or the end of the year for it to make a recovery in terms of getting all its factories up and running to their full capacities.