Toyota Sales Sinking Fast, Down 21.5%
To paraphrase John F. Kennedy (who probably stole the expression from someone else), a falling tide lowers all boats. Or, if you prefer, it looks like Toyota got keelhauled along with the rest of 'em this month. Automotive News [sub] also does nautical metaphorication, reporting that "Toyota Motor Corp. ran aground in June, with U.S. sales down 21.4 percent (unadjusted), the biggest drop of the year for the world's No. 2 automaker. For the first half, Toyota said it sold 1,240,086 vehicles, down 6.8 percent from the first half of 2007." ToMoCo doesn't break out their Scion sub-brand's sales, but Lexus is proving to be a luxury canary in a gold mine- or if we're unmixing metaphors, a bit of a boat anchor. Lexus' Junes sales slumped 21.1 percent vs. June '07. Truck sales? We're talking post-iceberg Titanic; down 31.1 percent. What's worse, Toyota can't build Prius-shaped lifeboats fast enough. "Sales of the Prius hybrid were down 25 percent during the month as Toyota struggled with supply problems. Dealers are reporting a two-month wait for the fuel efficient hatchback." Clearly, the U.S. market is undergoing a sea change. Toyota has the products it needs to change course, but it's hard to sell anything when people ain't buyin'.
UPDATE: Toyota just sent out a revised press release with June's sales breakout. The numbers in the press release are adjusted for selling days. The numbers used both by Automotive News and TTAC are unadjusted.
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Quasimondo: "Toyota has been building this generation Prius for four years. Four years it’s been a runaway success where you can not buy one without having to be placed on a waiting list and they can’t put two and two together and sacrifice a plant that can be quickly converted (so I’m told) to ramp up production in short (as in less than four years) notice?" Except, that's not so. I was up at the Toyota dealer about three months ago and they had 30 Priuses available and were dealin'. Prius sales have been rather cyclic. It strikes me as likely that it would require a proportionately bigger investment to increase capacity (not just more vehicle capacity, but also more HSD device capacity and more battery capacity), so a more conservative approach is not too surprising.
Maybe people will buy less cars but I don't see it happening in the long run. We might go down to 12 million for the next two years but I would bet on it going right back up to 16 million by 2012. The Volt and made in USA plug-in Prius will be around, plus clean diesels, B-segment cars and more hybrids will "fuel" car sales just as cars sold from 2000-2006 are finally getting long in the tooth. Funny how no one mentions the superior quality and durability of today's cars as a reason why sales are down. It's easy, anyone who has bought a car in the last 8 years still has a great car and has no reason to buy a new one.