Toyota said today it would invest $1.3 billion to build its eighth North American assembly plant in Blue Springs, Miss., just outside Tupelo in northeastern Mississippi.

The plant will build the Toyota Highlander, a crossover vehicle, and will employ 2,000 workers. Production is expected to begin in 2010, and reach 150,000 vehicles each year.

The 1,700-acre site was promoted vigorously by the state, which wound up in a competition with Arkansas and Tennessee for the factory.

The decision brings Toyota to an area best known for being the birthplace of Elvis Presley.

The site is logical for Toyota, which has an engine factory in Huntsville, Ala., about 125 miles away. It continues the company’s strategy of building plants in southern states, where automotive factories are largely nonunion.

The selection of Mississippi also continues Toyota’s share-the-wealth strategy. Mississippi is the seventh state where Toyota operates either a vehicle or an engine factory.

It also produces vehicles in Ontario, where a new factory in Woodstock also is under construction. This year, it will begin building Camry sedans at an Indiana plant owned by Subaru.

These plants generate hundreds of millions of dollars in investments and create hundreds of jobs at suppliers and support businesses.

“Toyota is the world’s premier auto manufacturer, and our state will be the best partner the company has,” said Mississippi’s governor, Haley Barbour, who announced the plant during an event at Tupelo High School.

The announcement comes as Toyota is on the verge of becoming the world’s biggest auto company, displacing General Motors, an event that could happen as soon as this year.

In 2006, Toyota unseated DaimlerChrysler to become the third-biggest automaker in the United States. This year, it could move up to second biggest in American sales, displacing Ford Motor.

Over the last 18 months, G.M., Ford and the Chrysler Group have each announced plans to close factories and eliminate jobs. Collectively, more than 86,000 blue- and white-collar jobs at the Detroit companies will disappear as the three companies restructure.

In 2006, Toyota built more than 1.55 million vehicles and 1.4 million engines at its 14 plants in North America.

In January, G.M.’s vice chairman, Robert A. Lutz, said Toyota had more influence in Washington than G.M. because of the number of states where it had plants.

Mississippi was not on the original list of states considered by Toyota, which had said the factory would probably be in the South. Initially, the company considered sites in Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina.

But when it became known that Toyota was considering another factory, more states entered the running, including Mississippi, where three counties banded together to promote the Blue Springs site.

The Toyota plant would be the second big auto factory in Mississippi and would be an economic boost after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Nissan Motor Company opened an assembly plant in Canton, outside Jackson, in 2003.

Toyota also had considered expanding its plant in San Antonio, which builds a new version of its Tundra pickup. Its 2,000-acre plant site there is believed to be among the biggest in the world, and it is common for Toyota to expand factories after it begins production.

Toyota executives see the newest Tundra, which competes with Detroit’s big pickups, as the most important vehicle the company has ever introduced in the United States.

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SAN ANTONIO – When Toyota named Katsuaki Watanabe as its new president last year, many assumed he would be a caretaker chief executive, steering the giant automaker with a steady hand and a minimum of surprises until Akio Toyoda, the 50-year-old great-grandson of the company’s founder, took charge.

The low-key approach of Mr. Watanabe – who rose up through the ranks as a cost-cutting manager of suppliers – seemed the safest bet, particularly since the company already was becoming a political target for taking market share at the expense of other automakers like Ford Motor and General Motors.

The board’s choice of Mr. Watanabe was also widely seen as a move to put someone in charge who could streamline the company and eliminate waste after a decade of rapid expansion.

But Mr. Watanabe is proving that first impressions can be misleading.

Texans found that out earlier this month, when Mr. Watanabe, clad in a conservative gray suit, jumped behind the wheel of a blue Tundra full-size pickup that had just rolled off the line at Toyota’s new assembly plant here. To the roar of assembled plant workers and dozens of guests, Mr. Watanabe leaned on the horn and leaned out the window, waving and smiling.

A few minutes later, Mr. Watanabe found himself enveloped in a hug from the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who enthusiastically violated the “no touching” rule of Japanese business etiquette, unable to control his delight that the $1.2 billion plant had finally opened in his state.

To his credit, Mr. Watanabe endured the embrace with a smile. And while he will never have a Texas-size personality, Mr. Watanabe, through his deeds as much as his words, has been raising his profile, stepping out as the leader of a company that may soon supplant General Motors as the world’s biggest automaker.

“Many assumed he would be a weak transitional player,” said Takaki Nakanishi, an analyst in Tokyo for J. P. Morgan Securities. “But he has surprised everyone.”

Even so, Mr. Watanabe remains the least-known Toyota president in years. After a year on the job, he is still less well known than either of his two predecessors: Hiroshi Okuda, known for his political savvy, and Fujio Cho, whose manufacturing expertise and warm personality made him a legend in Kentucky, where he was the first manager of its first American plant in Georgetown.

And Mr. Watanabe generally has shown little interest in the kind of appearances required of other automotive chieftains. He skipped this year’s Detroit auto show and attended only a reception at the Paris show in September.

But he has made his presence felt in other ways. Mr. Watanabe has bought stakes in two Toyota rivals, moves intended to help increase its sales, for example.

He has directed an effort to rethink how the company develops its vehicles and, most dramatically, he has ordered the company to find and fix the reasons why Toyota suffered an unusual spate of recalls during the last year. Mr. Watanabe made international headlines when he bowed low at a news conference in July in an apology for the errors.

His actions have helped counter the conventional wisdom that Mr. Watanabe, 64, would serve as little more than a seat warmer until Mr. Toyoda’s ascension. No one at Toyota would talk about when that might occur, but Mr. Toyoda, who has run Toyota’s Web business as well as its operations in China, was promoted last year to executive vice president, a title from which he could easily move to the top rung.

In some quarters, Mr. Watanabe is still having trouble shaking his reputation as a placeholder chief executive.

“Mr. Watanabe is a transitional C.E.O., standing in before Mr. Toyoda can take the helm,” said Hirofumi Yokoi, a former Toyota accountant who is now an analyst at CSM Worldwide, an auto market research company. “Mr. Watanabe will be easy to replace when the time comes.”

Mr. Watanabe’s biggest challenge will be to “keep Toyota from losing its soul” as a company focused on quality as it continues its breakneck expansion, said James P. Womack, an author and manufacturing expert.

Mr. Watanabe did not waste time this spring when its quality came under attack. His symbolic apology, accompanied by a vow to find the root cause for the defects, distressed Toyota sales executives in the United States, who felt it portrayed too groveling an image, said a senior official in Toyota’s North American operations, who insisted on anonymity because he was second-guessing his company’s decision.

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SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 15 – Toyota’s approach to the pickup truck market has always been cautious, dipping a toe in the market with small trucks, then bringing out slightly bigger models that its own executives acknowledged were meek.

Even when it built its first American truck plant last decade in Indiana, Toyota did not make a complete commitment, dividing the assembly line between pickups, minivans and sport utility vehicles.

Now that caution is coming to an end.

Toyota is placing a big bet on a big truck, built at a big plant in a big state that takes its pickups seriously – and where the rivalry for buyers has always been among the three big Detroit companies.

The risks go beyond the size of the investment. Toyota has built a reputation among consumers for selling fuel-efficient vehicles. But with big V-8 engines powering the new Tundra, that reputation could falter somewhat as it joins the horsepower-and-torque marketing battle with Detroit automakers.

On Friday, Toyota will officially open its new $1.2 billion assembly plant here, although it has already begun building the biggest version yet of its Tundra pickup, which goes on sale Feb. 12. In a sign of its importance to the automaker, Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota’s president, will make a rare American appearance to dedicate the factory.

Given the company’s reputation for innovations in manufacturing, many in the industry are eager to see what is new at the plant. But Toyota, showing signs of its past caution, is not ready to give away secrets.

Its first-ever tour of the plant on Wednesday was limited to a few spots along the assembly line. Toyota officials declined to discuss the technology beyond what they showed. And they quickly corrected a plant manager who said the trucks built here would have more than 90 percent North American parts, or about 10 percent higher than what Toyota has previous disclosed.

The new Tundra, bigger and more powerful than the current model, is being watched carefully for its impact on the final market that Detroit can truly call its own.

“Toyota’s San Antonio strategy has two profound implications,” said John A. Casesa, a veteran auto analyst with the Casesa Shapiro Group. “First, it can do serious, even potentially fatal damage to Detroit’s financial health by attacking the domestic industry’s last sizable source of extraordinary profits. Second, it will, once and for all, cause many consumers to think of Toyota not as a Japanese company, but as a global company, or even an American company.”

James P. Womack, co-author of “The Machine That Changed the World,” which studied Japanese companies’ American operations, agreed that the Texas plant was fraught with symbolism.

“Tundra in Texas marks the complete Americanization of Toyota,” he said. “There are no segments left to conquer and no part of the country overlooked.”

But the Tundra will face new competition from Detroit, too. Before it goes on sale, General Motors should be rolling out new versions of its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, and Ford Motor should have a new Super Duty version of its F-series truck.

Ron Pinelli, an analyst with Autodata, an industry statistics firm in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., said Detroit would retain its leadership in full-size pickups. By itself, “the Tundra does not spell doom,” he said, but it would squeeze Detroit’s profits at a time when Ford and Chrysler have suffered big losses and G.M. is crawling back to profitability after some of its worst losses in its history.

And any kind of improvement in truck sales would spell success for Toyota, which, despite pushing past DaimlerChrysler this year to capture third place in the overall American market, sells just 5 percent of the country’s full-size pickups.

“The new truck can only do better,” Mr. Pinelli said.

Toyota is waiting to start shipping its trucks until it can deliver at least four to each of its 1,200 dealers, including at least one Tundra equipped with a new 5.7-liter V-8 engine that it plans to begin building at its Huntsville, Ala., plant in January.

To tout the Tundra’s arrival, Toyota has erected billboards throughout this city. One sits just blocks from the Alamo, declaring the pickup to be one more reason “not to mess with Texas.” Indeed, a blue lone star sits above the entrance to the Toyota plant, while the Texas flag flies out front next to the stars and stripes.

The Texas location was an important part of Toyota’s strategy to appeal to buyers in the nation’s biggest truck market. It also played into the company’s goal of diversifying both its work force and management. About 55 percent of the nearly 2,000 workers hired here are of Hispanic origin, plant officials said Wednesday, reflecting the population of San Antonio.

In addition, Toyota chose a group of minority-owned companies from around San Antonio to partner with its parts suppliers and build small factories that surround the main assembly plant.

One of them is Reyes Industries, a company that makes cots and other equipment for the United States Army. Its owner, Fernando Reyes, is now making plastic parts with the Lear Corporation, one of the country’s biggest parts suppliers.

Mr. Reyes, who is chairman-elect of San Antonio’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, has taken the manufacturing ideas gleaned from Toyota back to his Army-equipment factory a few miles away. Even though San Antonio already has a solid place in the history and economy of South Texas, Toyota’s new plant “will change San Antonio forever,” Mr. Reyes said.

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TEN years ago last January, the Toyota RAV4 walked onstage and took a bow, as perky and precocious as an automotive Shirley Temple in a sheet-metal pinafore. Who would have thought that this tiny sort of sport utility was the precursor of what would become, within a decade, the hottest part of the auto market?

Back then, the RAV4 and a couple of similarly small utility vehicles ? remember the Suzuki Sidekick? ? were dubbed ?cute utes.? Today, the RAV4 is just one of many crossovers, defined as vehicles classified as trucks but based on unibody passenger-car architecture, as opposed to the body-on-frame structure of most true trucks.

Crossovers have become so popular that they are essentially taking over the S.U.V. market, except for the really big models.

To remain competitive in the expanding compact-crossover class, Toyota extensively redesigned the RAV4 for the 2006 model year, making the wagon much larger outside and quite a lot roomier inside. The vehicle is 14 inches longer, which let the engineers squeeze in an optional third row of seats. Such a third row, even if it is cramped and uncomfortable in wagons like these, is rapidly becoming a feature that consumers expect in all but the smallest crossovers.

The new design has a benefit even for RAV4?s with just two rows: there is now a useful storage area under the rear floor.

The RAV4 comes in three trims, Base, Sport and Limited, at prices ranging from $20,905 for a front-drive, four-cylinder base model to $26,475 for a Limited with a V-6 engine and all-wheel drive. Options can push prices much higher, of course.

The standard engine is a 2.4-liter in-line four rated at 166 horsepower and 165 pound-feet of torque. The V-6 increases the RAV4?s horsepower by a whopping 103, to 269 (and 246 pound-feet).

Both engines are rated to run on regular-grade gasoline.

All versions of the RAV4 are offered with either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. There is no manual transmission. The four-cylinder model comes with only a four-speed automatic, and the V-6 with a five-speed unit.

Interestingly, despite all its extra power, the V-6 carries a mileage rating comparable to the 4?s, thanks to the extra gear ratio. The V-6 with all-wheel drive is rated at 21 m.p.g. city and 28 highway, compared with 23/28 for the smaller engine. (Front-drive models do 1 to 2 m.p.g. better.)

Electric power steering, added this year, also helps to improve fuel economy.

Toyota has made much of its Star safety system, which includes stability control, traction control and antilock brakes with electronic brake force distribution and braking assist. Unfortunately, the Star system does not include extra air bags, either side-impact bags mounted in the front seats or side curtain bags that provide head protection for the front and second-row seats. The air bag package costs $650 extra.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety gave the RAV4 its top marks in its front-offset and side crash tests. (The tested model had the optional air bags.)

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave the Toyota five stars (its top rating) for the driver and four stars for the front passenger in its 30 m.p.h. front-impact test. The side-impact rating was five stars for the driver and rear passenger. (The RAV4 crashed by the government did not have side air bags.)

I tested a RAV4 Limited with the four-cylinder engine and all-wheel drive. With options, it listed for $27,409. While that is a lot for a vehicle like this, a buyer need not spend so much. A Base front-drive version with a few choice options ? 17-inch wheels and tires ($120), cargo-area cover ($140), side and side-curtain air bags ($650) and daytime running lights ($40) ? would list for $21,855. It would ride and drive just as nicely as my test car.

When the RAV4 was last redesigned, for 2001, I tested it for this page and concluded that it was ?one of the sportiest small S.U.V.?s.? The bigger 2006 model may not look or feel quite so sporty, but it is a lot more practical, with more room and more useful features. It now feels less like a toy and more like a solid, substantial wagon.

The electric steering is precise and responsive, and the small-diameter steering wheel feels right. The RAV4 rides as smoothly as any vehicle in its class, and the brakes are smooth and progressive.

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IF the Japanese want to sell cars here, they must build them here, America?s automakers insisted back in the fuel-shocked 70?s.

And build them they did. Detroit?s brake, it turns out, was Japan?s accelerator.

Last week, for the first time, Japanese auto companies said they were now selling more vehicles outside Japan than at home ? the bulk in the United States. What?s more, Japan?s biggest automaker, Toyota, upset Ford for second place in the American market in July and reported a huge rise in profits for the quarter. Many analysts predict that Toyota will overtake first-place General Motors in global sales this year.

It?s quite possible that none of this would have happened, Japanese car company officials say, had American executives, politicians and union officials not put pressure on their companies nearly 30 years ago to build factories in the United States. It certainly wouldn?t have happened so fast.

?You could never do that by simply shipping cars from Japan,? said Dennis Cuneo, a senior vice president at Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America.

Beyond expanding American sales, the plants have given the Japanese companies a window into American life, creating thousands of jobs in grateful communities and blunting the stereotype of the automakers as predators interested only in sending profits back to Japan.

Detroit?s strategy seemed like a good idea at the time. When they began demanding that the Japanese companies build factories here, the four American companies ? G.M., Ford, Chrysler and American Motors (later bought by Chrysler) ? had almost 70 percent of the American market. They employed nearly 800,000 people in factories that carpeted the country.

But two fuel shocks in the 70?s had given Japanese automakers nearly 30 percent of the market, up from less than 20 at the start of the decade, and Detroit was glancing more frequently in the rearview mirror.

Henry Ford II at Ford and Lee A. Iacocca at Chrysler led the calls for the Japanese companies to open factories or face limits on sales. Douglas A. Fraser, the president of the United Automobile Workers at the time, went further. Mr. Fraser, whose union was pushing measures in Congress that would have limited each Japanese company to just 200,000 sales a year, or about a quarter the number of cars and trucks that Toyota was selling then in the United States, flew to Japan to confront the leaders of Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mitsubishi.

?Invest where your market is,? Mr. Fraser told them, he recalled last week. ?Build cars where your consumers are.?

?I not only advocated it, I yelled at them,? he said with a chuckle.

Ultimately, Japan and the United States agreed to voluntary limits on the imports, essentially forcing the companies to build here. Detroit reasoned that the limits would give it time to recoup lost ground, as the Japanese sorted through the complexities of setting up plants and pipelines of parts to supply them.

Not only did the ground remain lost, so did the unquestioning loyalty of American consumers, as Japanese companies moved in on virtually every market, from family cars to luxury models to minivans.

Despite having three decades to outwit the Japanese, G.M., Ford and Chrysler find themselves in a worse situation. The big S.U.V.?s and pickups that fed profits in the 90?s and helped them briefly halt the Japanese climb are falling out of favor in the face of $3-a-gallon gasoline, and Detroit has failed to develop enough fuel-efficient cars to overcome its gas-guzzling image. The American companies are stuck with heavy labor costs, especially for pensions and health care, which they say make them unable to compete with the Japanese, largely unburdened by union contracts and hefty legacy costs.

Detroit held 52 percent of the market last month, its smallest share ever. The Japanese took nearly 40 percent of the American market, their biggest.

Only now, most of the Japanese sales come from the factories that Detroit insisted they create.

And they are not just places to make cars. American plants have given the Japanese companies a tutorial in dealing with other cultures. Toyota is now building its Camry sedan, America?s best-selling car, in seven countries, including Vietnam and China, using ideas gleaned from Camry?s base in Kentucky.

Rural towns like Georgetown, Ky., and East Liberty, Ohio, mere dots on the map before Toyota and Honda arrived, now boast jobs with $25-an-hour wages that rival those at Detroit factories, helping offset some of the half-million automotive jobs Detroit lost. The factories have lifted the economies of entire states, like Indiana, which recently won a new Honda plant; Tennessee, where Nissan has two factories and will put its American headquarters; and Alabama, with four major car factories in 15 years.

With that has come influence in state capitals as well as in Washington, where the Japanese no longer face the protectionist threats that forced them to invest here. Now states like Indiana line up to offer millions of dollars in incentives to land their plants, while President Bush, who said Detroit needed to build ?relevant? products, has postponed a meeting with Detroit auto leaders three times this year.

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DETROIT, Aug. 4 ? Toyota said on Friday that it had reached a settlement in an embarrassing sexual harassment lawsuit filed against a former top executive by another employee.

Both have since left the automaker.

The suit was filed in May by Sayaka Kobayashi, who sought nearly $200 million in damages.

Ms. Kobayashi had worked as an assistant to Hideaki Otaka, who served until May as president and chief executive of Toyota Motor North America, which oversees the company?s manufacturing and financial operations from New York.

Terms of the settlement, announced in a joint statement by Toyota and lawyers for Ms. Kobayashi, were not disclosed.

?We are very pleased to have resolved this matter in a way that all parties have agreed is fair, appropriate and mutually satisfactory to all concerned,? the statement said.

A spokesman for Toyota, Steven Curtis, declined to say whether the company paid Ms. Kobayashi as part of the settlement.

Mr. Curtis said Ms. Kobayashi had ?made a personal decision to leave Toyota to pursue other interests.?

Mr. Otaka, who had been scheduled to be reassigned to a job in Japan, has retired from Toyota, Mr. Curtis said, but declined to comment further.

A lawyer for Ms. Kobayashi could not be reached.

Mr. Otaka went on leave in May after Ms. Kobayashi filed her complaint in State Superior Court in Manhattan. In the lawsuit, Ms. Kobayashi, 42, accused Mr. Otaka, 64, of making repeated unwanted sexual advances.

She said Mr. Otaka arranged her travel and office schedules so that they would be alone together, required her to accompany him to social functions and groped her at a Washington hotel and in Central Park, which is near Toyota?s New York offices.

When she complained, she said, she was involuntarily transferred to a position in Toyota?s planning department, where she remained after the suit was filed.

Ms. Kobayashi sought at least $40 million in damages for emotional distress and injury to her reputation, as well as $150 million in punitive damages.

Soon after the suit, Toyota formed a special task force, led by Alexis M. Herman, a former secretary of labor for President Bill Clinton, to review Toyota?s policies and procedures on harassment and discrimination. Ms. Herman heads a diversity advisory board at Toyota.

Toyota, which has said it has a ?zero tolerance? policy on sexual harassment, said there would be additional training for senior executives and clearer procedures for responding to accusations of misconduct.

The lawsuit was a black eye for Toyota at a critical juncture.

In April, it beat DaimlerChrysler for the first time to rank as the No. 3 auto company in American sales. In July, Toyota upset Ford to take the No. 2 spot, behind General Motors.

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TOKYO, Aug. 4 ? Toyota Motor Company said its income jumped 39.2 percent to $3.2 billion during the second quarter, boosted by strong sales of fuel-efficient vehicles in the United States, where it passed Ford Motor Company in July sales to rank as the second-biggest automaker behind General Motors.

Toyota, which already ranks as No. 2 in the world, appears on pace to pass G.M. as the world?s biggest auto company, perhaps as soon as this year.

Toyota, which earned $2.3 billion in last year?s second quarter, said its revenue rose 13.2 percent while its vehicle sales rose nearly 8 percent worldwide, to just over 2 million.

For the full year, Toyota said it still expects to meet its profit forecast of about $11.3 billion and its sales forecast of $194 billion.

Toyota?s sales were led by the Corolla, the best-selling small car in the United States, the RAV-4, a small sport utility vehicle, and the FJ Cruiser, a gutsy S.U.V. aimed at younger buyers. Toyota also said its results were boosted by the strength of the yen.

Friday?s results came as Toyota has speeded efforts to deal with a spate of recalls, both in the United States and worldwide, that have triggered an investigation by the Japanese government.

Toyota?s robust showing is a sharp contrast to the struggles at G.M. and Ford, which have launched restructuring plans in an effort to reverse losses in their North American operations.

This week, both G.M. and Ford said their second-quarter losses were deeper than they originally disclosed, due to revisions in their cost estimates.

Toyota?s strong results came on top of Honda?s $1.2 billion profit during the second quarter, up 30 percent from 2005.

Many analysts believe Toyota will pass G.M. this year as the world?s biggest auto company, given an aggressive expansion plan that comes as G.M. is losing market share in the United States. Toyota is scouting locations for another assembly plant and a new engine plant, and will open a new truck factory in San Antonio this fall.

On Friday, Toyota said it was on track to meet its forecast of selling 8.45 million vehicles during its current fiscal year, which ends March 31.

G.M. has not released a sales forecast, but it sold just over 9.1 million vehicles last year.

Toyota said it earned an operating profit of $2 billion in North America, where its sales rose 16.5 percent during the quarter. Sales were boosted by the introduction of its new subcompact, the Yaris, which it has sold overseas for the past few years. It also introduced a redesigned version of the Camry sedan, the most popular family car in the United States.

Meanwhile, sales in Europe rose 20.3 percent, where Toyota earned an operating profit of $319 million. In Europe, as in the United States, the Yaris and RAV-4 are among its strongest selling vehicles.

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Toyota continued to dominate the initial quality rankings by J. D. Power & Associates, grabbing the top spot in 11 out of 19 segments in the 2006 survey, released yesterday.

Porsche dominated the overall ranking of brands, averaging 91 problems per 100 vehicles. That compared with an industry average of 124 problems per 100 vehicles.

The study, in its 20th year, was revamped to isolate consumers’ concerns about design flaws, as distinct from defects and malfunctions. The change in methodology makes year-to-year comparisons impossible.

A parallel survey conducted using the old methodology found, however, that as a whole, the industry improved 8 percent from 2005, said Joe Ivers, executive director of quality and customer satisfaction research at J. D. Power.

Lexus, Toyota’s luxury brand, came in second in the overall nameplate rankings, with 93 problems per 100 vehicles. The Toyota brand came in fourth with 106.

“They’re the closest thing to defect-free,” Mr. Ivers said of the two brands.

In vehicle segments, Toyota had five winners, including the Corolla for compact car, the Camry for midsize car, and the Sequoia for large sport utility vehicle. Lexus had six top vehicles, including the IS 250 and IS 350 for entry premium car, the SC 430 for premium sporty car and LX 470 for large premium SUV.

Of the Big Three domestic automakers, General Motors made the strongest showing. Its vehicles won in two segments: large pickup (Chevrolet Silverado) and large car (Pontiac Grand Prix). The Chrysler Town and Country was the top-ranked van, and the Ford Ranger won for midsize pickup.

Hyundai Motor scored a sleeper hit with consumers, as the Hyundai brand came in No. 3, with an average 102 problems. The Hyundai Tucson took the top spot for compact S.U.V. or crossover.

For the study, J. D. Power collected responses from 63,607 purchasers and lessees of new 2006 model-year vehicles after 90 days of ownership.

This year’s survey included 217 questions, up from 135 in previous years, and asked for information specifically about design problems, as well as defects.

The BMW brand had few defects, but one of the highest number of complaints about design ? specifically about the way the brand integrated new technology into its vehicles, Mr. Ivers said.

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The Japanese auto giant said net revenues for the 12 months ended March 31, 2006, increased 13.4% year-on-year to Y21 trillion yen, while operating income reached Y1.87 trillion, an increase of 12.3% over the previous year.

Net income for fiscal 2006 increased 17.2% to Y1.37 trillion, representing the third consecutive year in which profits exceeded Y1 trillion. All of the above figures marked record highs for the firm.

Positive contributions to operating income included Y300 billion from the positive effects of changes in exchange rates, Y240 billion from marketing efforts and Y130 billion from cost reduction efforts. These gains offset the negative effects of Y307 billion in expenses increases and Y156.5 in special factors.

Commenting on the results, Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe said, “Earnings trended upwards in the latter half of the fiscal year, resulting in positive year-on-year growth for the entire year. Although the effects of foreign currency exchange rates were contributing factors, Toyota’s performance demonstrated the strength of our company’s ongoing operational efforts.”

Watanabe concluded by commenting on the outlook for profitability, “Our business environment will remain severe, with a significant increase in raw material prices and competition intensifying. However, we wish to achieve results that exceed our latest financial results while continuing investment for future growth.”

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The executive, Hideaki Otaka, president and chief of Toyota Motor North America, which oversees the company’s manufacturing and financial operations, had planned to leave next month for a job in Japan. He has been in his current job for two years.

But Toyota said on Monday that Mr. Otaka had stepped aside, and was on leave.

Toyota said that Yuki Funo, the chief executive of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., its American sales operation, would assume Mr. Otaka’s responsibilities, the first time Toyota’s two main operations in the United States have been led by a single executive.

It also named James Press, the president of Toyota Motor Sales, as president of Toyota Motor North America. It is the first time an American has held that position.

Jim Lentz, a group vice president at Toyota Motor Sales, will be named an executive vice president and will assume Mr. Press’s duties.

Toyota said the promotions, which it had not previously announced, had been planned for the end of June. But they were hastened by a lawsuit filed last week by Sayaka Kobayashi, who works in the Toyota Motor North America planning department, but served as Mr. Otaka’s assistant from last summer through this winter.

In a complaint filed last week in State Superior Court in Manhattan, Ms. Kobayashi, 42, accused Mr. Otaka, 64, of making repeated unwanted sexual advances.

She said Mr. Otaka arranged her travel and office schedules so that they would be alone together, required her to accompany him to social functions and groped her at a Washington hotel and in Central Park, which is near Toyota’s New York offices.

When she complained, she said she was involuntarily transferred to the planning department position.

In the suit, Ms. Kobayashi has sought at least $40 million in damages for emotional distress and injury to her reputation, as well as $150 million in punitive damages.

On Monday, Toyota said Mr. Otaka would continue to defend himself against the accusations.

The company said that it had also formed a special task force, led by Alexis M. Herman, President Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor, to review Toyota’s policies and procedures on harassment and discrimination. Ms. Herman heads a diversity advisory board at Toyota.

Toyota, which has said it has a “zero tolerance” policy on sexual harassment, said there would be additional training for senior executives and clearer procedures for responding to accusations.

In the statement, Toyota’s president, Katsuaki Watanabe, said the automaker was “committed to making all necessary and appropriate improvements in our policies and practices to fulfill our core principles of respect for people and continuous improvement.”

The lawsuit was a black eye for Toyota at a critical juncture.

Last month, it beat DaimlerChrysler for the first time to rank as the No. 3 auto company in American sales.

Worldwide, Toyota, which already ranks second, ahead of Ford Motor, could push ahead of General Motors this year to become the world’s biggest automaker. On Wednesday, Toyota is expected to post a 2005 profit of $16 billion.

A Revision at G.M.

DETROIT, May 8 (Reuters) ? General Motors on Monday revised its first-quarter results to exclude a charge for a retiree health care deal with its union, an accounting change that pushed the world’s largest automaker to profit.

G.M. said that it had made the change after discussions with regulators over how to treat an initially reported charge of $681 million, or $1.20 a share, related to a health care settlement with blue-collar retirees.

After excluding that charge, G.M. said it had earned $445 million, or 78 cents a share, in the first quarter, compared with an initially reported loss of $323 million, or 57 cents a share. The revised results snapped a losing streak of five consecutive quarters for the automaker.

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