The Financial Times reports that Toyota sliced production of its full-sized pickup by 29 percent last month, trimming November's output to 18,300 vehicles. Quite how that recently revealed factoid reconciles with last week's statement by ToMoCo's U.S. group vice president and general manager that the automaker had a good shot at meeting its 200k per year Tundra sales target is anyone's guess. I'm thinking Bob Carter's boast was a triumph of hype-fueled expectation over hard reality. And the hard reality is that the U.S. pickup truck market has tanked. Automotive News (AN, sub) reports that flatbed sales fell fat by 10.4 percent last month. To try to maintain the big Mo on the Texas-built Tundra, Toyota is hawking zero-percent financing or $2k cash rebates on the '08 model. In any case, as a non-union operator, winding down production doesn't put a major ding in Toyota's operating expenses. And there's LOADS of profit in the vehicles they do sell.
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I was talking to a friend in the Construction business yesterday at A Trade Show he stated that Canadian Pacific Rail who are building a new Marshalling Yard at Woodstock Ontario, home of the new Toyota Factory here, he said that CP Rail have always purchased Chrysler Trucks but decided to try a Tundra, now having put 250,000 Kms on one of them and having no down time as compared to the Chrysler vehicles which spent a lot of time in the Repair Shop, and even though there is a cost in buying a Toyota product they have decided to purchase more Toyota Trucks and less Chrysler ones, and so it goes!
I saw rebates up to $4K on Tundras up in New York.
Ted, I strongly suspect that the Big 2.8 are going to get kicked in the tail by Toyota in the truck market on that reason alone.
I was talking to a friend in the Construction business yesterday at A Trade Show he stated that Canadian Pacific Rail who are building a new Marshalling Yard at Woodstock Ontario, home of the new Toyota Factory here, he said that CP Rail have always purchased Chrysler Trucks but decided to try a Tundra, now having put 250,000 Kms on one of them and having no down time as compared to the Chrysler vehicles which spent a lot of time in the Repair Shop, and even though there is a cost in buying a Toyota product they have decided to purchase more Toyota Trucks and less Chrysler ones, and so it goes!
Ted, CP’s first problem was buying Dodge trucks in the first place. Sure, they’re cheaper for their fleet purchaser, but they’ll cost in the long run. I’m glad the Tundra (last-gen) they purchased has served them well, but the Tundra this article refers to has had all kinds of teething problems.
Toyota might yet produce a class-leading half-ton, but it isn’t this one.
I’ll say this ad nauseum: the light truck market is not like the passenger car market.
A company that got a permit to build a railroad yard in a town with a Toyota factory bought Toyota trucks. What a coincidence.
I don’t know how many times I,ve read or heard.The new domestics Malibu, Fusion CTS Impala are almost as good as the Honda, Toyota whatever.
When it comes to real trucks Toyota made a good effort.The consumer wasn’t fooled though.In a shrinking truck market,the F 150 and the Silverado are the top of the heap.
As far as CP goes,sure thier going to buy a few Tundras.Its good not to bite the hand that feeds you.CP is not stupid they keep thier fleet mixed cause its good for buisness.
0% for 60 months, or $3k on the 2007’s here (Mid-Atlantic). GM and Ford have similar discounts.
mikey,
It takes time to win market share. That’s all. Toyota is perfectly willing to win customers slowly.
In the long run they will win though. Everytime the market dips and they can continue to make money while the domestics have to keep paying union labor, we get closer to the day that Toyota wins.
I can’t believe there aren’t more manufacturing plants in southern Texas. The Dallas area has gotten almost as unionized as Detroit.
The Dallas area has gotten almost as unionized as Detroit.
And in a “Right to Work” state, to boot!