Toyota January Sales: Unintended Deaccelleration – Down 16%
First things first: TTAC reports gross monthly sales numbers, not adjusted for daily selling rate (DSR). That explains why (almost) everyone else is reporting Toyota as down 8.7%. Either way, it hurts. And it’s pretty obvious that the sales freeze and recall on certain products is a major contributor. Lexus cars, not affected, are up 11%. Toyota brand cars, hit hard by the affected Camry (down 24%) and Corolla (-11%) are down 12% overall. Toyota brand trucks took an even bigger hit, down overall by 28%, thanks in major part to a crash in Tundra sales, down a whopping 45%. Toyota managed to sell just 3,904 big Tundras in January.
The rebound in Lexus cars is the one bright spot in the dismal picture, since Lexus took a disproportionately hard hit during the worst of the Carpocalypse. Full pdf chart here.
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How about 57% drop in the Sienna sales? And it is not even included into recall.
Meanwhile, NHTSA is close to recommending over 900,000 Chevy Cobalts be recalled because, ah, the steering can fail. Curious to see whether the Obamamill makes as much hay out of this, as it has over Toyota's misfortunes. Regardless, I'll take unintended acceleration (easily controlled by shifting into neutral) any day.
The Tundra is a complete, unmitigated business disaster. Toyota spent multiple billions of dollars and hasn't even put a dent in the Ford-GM dominance of that market. Meanwhile, Toyota has abandoned the cheap and cheerful small truck market they were once such a major player in. Think how inexpensive it would have been to keep the Hilux a player for the small truck market.