Now That the Car's Better Than Ever, Corolla Sales Will Likely Fall Nearly 20 Percent Below the Norm

Promises that “This will be the sedan that saves cars” and “The passenger car comeback starts here” are so 2017.

2018 welcomed the arrival of high expectations in the form of an all-new Toyota Camry and an all-new Honda Accord. The results were predictable, if not in the eyes of automaker CEOs, then surely for the rest of us. Camry and Accord sales each fell to a seven-year low, the refreshed Hyundai Sonata plunged to a 15-year low, and Mazda 6 volume hit an all-time annual low.

Now it’s time for an all-new version of the Toyota Corolla. Rather than suggest the Corolla will revitalize the compact car segment by generating renewed demand across the board and ending a mass migration to crossovers, Toyota’s prediction is much more realistic.

According to Toyota, sales of the all-new-much-improved Corolla will decline.

Toyota now expects the Corolla to be merely a 250,000-unit nameplate in the United States, an annual rate of success for which many automakers would sacrifice their proverbial firstborn. (Across six nameplates, Mazda sold 300,325 vehicles in the U.S. in 2018; Mitsubishi sold 118,074 vehicles.)

For the Corolla, however, a 250,000-unit performance would equal the lowest-volume year for its all-time best seller since 2011, when the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami severely hindered Toyota supply. Prior to 2011, Toyota USA hadn’t reported a sub-250,000-unit year for Corolla sales since 2001. Compared with the last decade, a 250,000-unit performance would be nearly 20-percent below the Corolla’s normal annual result.

Though popular for decades, Corolla popularity climbed to new heights over the last 15+ years as Toyota reaped the benefits of a built-in reputation for reliability. The latest Corollas, though leaving much to be desired for keen drivers, offered outstanding space efficiency and high levels of standard active safety kit.

Toyota began routinely selling more than 300,000 Corollas per year in the U.S. in 2003, shooting past the 350K mark on four occasions and hitting a high of 387,388 sales in 2006.

2006 was a very different time, a time when the Toyota brand was selling 1.1 million cars and fewer than half a million SUVs/crossovers per year. In the intervening dozen years, Toyota’s car volume has tumbled by more than a quarter while the brand’s utility vehicle sales have risen 83 percent. Toyota now sells nearly as many RAV4s per year as the brand sold RAV4s, 4Runners, FJs, Highlanders, Land Cruisers, and Sequoias in 2006.

Yes, 2006 was a different time. Indeed, 2016 was a very different time. Low-volume competitors such as the Mitsubishi Lancer and Dodge Dart have since given up the ghost, followed by formerly high-volume contenders such as the Ford Focus and Chevrolet Cruze. From the viewpoint of many Corolla competitors, the cost of staying in the fight simply isn’t worth the potential reward, not when the rewards are less and less impressive and earning them requires coming to the fight armed with ever more enticing incentives.

But if the absence of many competitors leads any to believe that Toyota’s much-improved Corolla stands a chance at growing its customer base, Toyota certainly isn’t on board with the theory. Just as the disappearance of competitors hasn’t resulted in Camry sales growth, so too the departures of Focus and Cruze aren’t likely to lead anything other than further degradation of compact car demand.

In part due to a new high-mileage hybrid (that will presumably deepen the Prius’s woes), Toyota believes a 250,000-unit target is appropriate. Southern states that haven’t entirely turned their backs on passenger cars will also help to keep the Corolla from becoming a reject.

The Corolla’s most heated rivalry continues to pit the Toyota compact against the Honda Civic. As Toyota clears out leftover Corollas in anticipation of the new sedan’s arrival, total Corolla volume rose 17 percent to 54,119 units through the first two months of 2019. That’s an early lead over the Civic, which was down 10 percent to 49,565 during the same period.

It was also enough to make the Corolla America’s top-selling passenger car. Not a bad start for a car that’s facing low expectations.

[Images: Toyota]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Driving.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars and Instagram.