They automotive press is increasingly fond of claiming that Toyota is going down the same path GM went down. But words are cheap.

Did Toyota overexpand their production capacity just in time for a severe market downturn? Absolutely. But a single major strategic miscue does not inevitably lead to long-term decline.

The real thing to pay attention to is not Toyota’s current profitability, but how they react to their problems.

First off, do they react to problems by claiming that they aren’t really problems, or by attempting to fix them? GM has for decades tended to opt for the former. Toyota, in contrast, readily admitted that it had made some mistakes and that it needed to fix these ASAP.

Second, if a solution doesn’t work, do they give up, or make another attempt? GM, time and time again, has poured billions of dollars into “breakthrough” solutions, only to ball them up (or let them die on the vine) when these solutions don’t initially succeed. Toyota, in contrast, has a record of trying over and over. They’re on their third Lexus GS, for example. Keep at it, and they’ll eventually have one that wins over BMW owners.

The key isn’t avoiding mistakes, but learning from mistakes, and not giving up. So far, Toyota seems to still be learning, and persisting. So I do not believe it will go down GM’s path.