For Toyota NA, it's the best of times and the worst of times. Averaging it all out, the tempus ain't that great. More specifically (and less poetically), ToMoCo's U.S. ops were off 7.9 percent for the month. (And to their credit, they don't make you hunt– Ford style– for the bottom line.) The Toyota brand tanked by 6.3 percent, while Lexus hit the buffers by, get this, 19.6 percent. Despite their fuel economy, Toyota's passenger cars only held steady, losing .9 percent in all. The Prius took an enormous whack; moving down 39.8 percent, from 24,009 sales in May '07 to 15,011 sales in May '08. The Yaris (+26.6) and Scion xB (+40.9) scored notable victories. On the truck side, as you'd imagine, there's plenty of blood in the water. The new Tundra took it on the chin, shedding 34 percent of last May's sales. The FJ is in deep trouble, down 50.1 percent. Overall, Toyota's light trucks lost 15.5 percent. But hey, the new Sequoia's up 75 percent! Now if gas prices suddenly drop a buck or two…
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No one is immune.
You’ve got to wonder if Toyota isn’t seriously questioning itself on the wisdom of making that huge investment in the Tundra in a hotly competitive segment and one that it only shrinking now.
The Prius took a whopper of a hit! What happened there?!
But, Toyota posted flat sales for the month.
Could be worse, they could have posted a 23% drop……right, Rick?
P.S If petrol were to drop a dollar or two, it would put Detroit, back in the game. If Toyota can maintain market share (and profits) at this level, then, maybe, they should look to expanding in India and China for extra growth. North America is a mature market.
If the Prius is getting smacked around our economic problems may be much worse than I expected. We may be beyond the high price of fuel to the part where people just don’t have any spare cash to replace much with. People who are able to make their payments and not much more.
Watch the restaurants I guess. If people are out of extra cash to spend the restaurants will dry up quickly.
I have to wonder why the Prius drop, when there is a SIX MONTH WAITING LIST at my local dealer for a Prius?
I suspect (very very strongly) that the plants are winding down and ready to be retooled for the 2009 Prius, which will be (apparently) all-new and uprated to 1.8 litres, 160 combined horsepower (up from 110 combined horsepower) for obviously better performance, better MPG and more room in a package only 10cm (4″) longer and no heavier, and at a comparable price.
Is there any break-out by model? With the big hit Lexus took, I’d be curious to see what was hit harder — the upper end or the lower end.
The Prius numbers are a bit misleading to the big picture. The year to date sales numbers are up about 2% as compared to last year. April was a very good month for the Prius, with April 2008 sales up 54% above April 2007.
At this rate, they are going to probably sell about 190,000 of these things for the year. That’s a very strong showing for a funky car with a weird look and an oddball powertrain. Everyone else should be so unlucky.
Lexus, though, is sucking wind. They need to internationalize the brand so it isn’t so susceptible to US downturns like this. If they can’t sell enough of them to us, they need to find other people in Europe and Asia who want to buy them. That’s Toyota’s next challenge, and I think that they may have a hard time meeting it.
I think a lot of people are realizing that the economics of a 48MPG vehicle that costs 27K don’t look as good as the economics of a 40MPG vehicle that costs 15K. Yaris is stealing customers from the Prius.
I think – but I don’t have the resources readily to hand to prove – that the Prius is doing OK.
Last year, Prius sales started off slow and hit big in May. This year, the Prius has been doing pretty well all along. I believe the production capacity (or the share allocated to US consumption) is about 180K vehicles per year – or 15K per month. I think they’ve been running ahead of 15K per month sales for a while, now, doing 20K units last month, on a vehicle that has never had a big inventory buildup.
Toyota probably went into this May with Prius inventories low, and they sold out, basically, all they could get for the month.
Menno: i agree with you. i think anyone who thinking about the Prius and is in the know will wait (i myself for that matter).
TriShield: i have no doubt that introducing this over sized “Detroit” like iron was probably not the best idea considering that gas is not going back down. but the Japanese manufactures have a history of coming into a segment with great product and sticking around until they are one of the dominant players. also they will keep improving there product/market position and when things up-tick again they will be ready to sell, sell sell, albeit in a smaller big lite truck market.
The Prius clearly is suffering from limited supply. Now that waiting lists are back, dealers dont have enough to sell.
Where are these acutal numbers coming from? I havent seen a chart from Toyota yet.
I dont think Toyota is too upset by May sales. Toyota brand is mopping the floor with Chevy and Ford. ToMoCo sold only about 15K less than all of GM. If the Prius had not been in such short supply, who knows…..
I think a lot of people are realizing that the economics of a 48MPG vehicle that costs 27K don’t look as good as the economics of a 40MPG vehicle that costs 15K.
The Prius is outselling the Yaris, both for the month and for the year. Prius inventories as of April 30 were at seven days, which is much below the industry average. Numbers like that usually equate to MSRP prices and some waiting lists.
The problem with monthly numbers is that by themselves, they don’t necessarily tell us very much, especially if there is no other context.
The numbers suggest that Prius sales would be higher if there were more of them available to sell. Inventories had stacked up a bit in January. Dealers burned through a lot of that stack over the following few months, before hitting a low inventory point in April that they can’t replenish quickly enough.
Alex Rodriguez,
The Prius’ base price is still under $22K. The Yaris is much smaller inside; the base Yaris isn’t equipped as nicely as the base Prius and the top Yaris can’t be equipped as nicely as the top Prius. Some people, for a variety of reasons will spend more simply to get uneconomically better fuel economy (to save the planet or hedge against future fuel price increases or just because it’s nifty).
They compete but not near as much as you might think.
The FJ is in deep trouble, down 50.1 percent.
Hmmm, so hideous, ponderous, thirsty, and impossible to see out of is not a recipe for longterm success? Guess Toyota needed to learn that lesson too.
I suspect low inventories for the Prius number. It’s a supply issue, not a demand issue. Dealers might have sold all they had in April.
On Lexus–I think all luxury brands are about to tank. Over the last few months I’ve noticed more and more of TrueDelta’s panel members replacing premium brands with non-premium brands.
Busbodger,
My wife works in the credit department for a major restaurant food supplier and there are a lot of higher dollar restaurants going belly up right now, at least in Central Ohio.
The FJ was a boutique version of the Tacoma. Toyo knew the fad would fade at some point, they will just cut it and never think twice.
Hmmm, so hideous, ponderous, thirsty, and impossible to see out of is not a recipe for longterm success? Guess Toyota needed to learn that lesson too.
They probably made money on it. There’s a lot of platform sharing that went into it, so the development costs must have been low.
Still, it probably has “discontinue” written all over it. If this keeps up, I’ll bet that it disappears within 1-2 years.
Considering the state of the dollar, Toyota can sell a Prius in the U.S. for little or no profit, or they can sell it in Europe for a large profit.
Not much of a choice.
Poor Lexus. Anyone want a nice, warm pile of LF-A? It only cost $200,000 bucks! That’s like only twenty Euros, what a deal!
The way it struck me, the Prius was more about giving the sort of upper middle class (and upper class) types who have no passion for cars (hey — I can’t begrudge a man his interests) a socially acceptable excuse to not spend $35,000 — $45,000 (or more) on an auto, as much as it was about pure dollars-and-cents savings on motoring costs.
Sure, Warren Buffett can get away with driving a used Oldsmobile or panther platform or old Caddy boat or whatever, but I’m sure there are plenty of yuppies out there who secretly long to just buy a Cam-cord and spent the other $15,000 on something they actually want, but can’t bear the thought of facing their friends in anything less flash than the BMW 3-series, for fear of the ridicule they’ll face. Now the Prius gives them the out they’ve always wanted, as well as a “papal indulgence” for any enviro-guilt they may have on their chests.
At any rate, since, by my theory, the Prius is selling to a market far richer than its actual price point suggests — and its fuel economy figures make it an obvious choice when gas prices are high — there’s probably a lot of room for economic slack before actual demand really goes down. I’ll say that the “sales are down because they’ve sold out” theories strike me as most plausible.
To all that asked, here is the sales chart:
http://pressroom.toyota.com/Releases/View?id=TYT2008060335766
I have to agree with several above comments — there is no lack of demand for the Prius. I live in a major metropolitan area and there is not a Prius available on a lot in this region of the state, at least. In fact the only time I have even seen a Prius sitting on a dealer lot was in Western Arkansas. They’ve got to be either winding down production of 08 models or diverting them to Europe, unless there’s some supply chain disruption I haven’t heard about (or else Toyota’s horribly mismanaged inventory and sent them all to Arkansas).
Everybody missed the big news here.
May sales:
Ford F-Series: 42,973
Toyota Corolla: 52,826
Toyota Camry: 51,291
This is probably the first month in decades where the Ford F-Series wasn’t the best selling vehicle in the country-and Toyota beat it with two seperate vehicles.
Civic outsold all of them at 53,000 (including hybrid)
Juniper: Not quite. Civic’s sales were 53,299. You probably added in the hybrid numbers on their sales chart to that total, when they were already included. Accord’s sales were 43,728, so that makes the Ford F-Series in fifth place.
http://www.hondanews.com/categories/1097/releases/4528
When I went car shopping on Memorial Day, a Prius was marked up 10k and only had 1 in stock. There was a waiting list, too, but I’m not sure how long. That’s probably why sales are so slow. Markups and supply.
Does anybody know how long of a waiting list there is for a Prius? Methinks the real reason Prius sales tanked is because the gov’t isn’t offering up tax credits for them anymore.
Smart buyers don’t pay over MSRP for a Prius.
In 2004-2005, I waited 9 1/2 months for my first one, and a dealer 50 miles away offered to let me jump to the front of the queue for a small nominal $1500 fee. I didn’t want to play that game, simply out of fair-play – even had I not minded the idea of giving scumbags $1500.
I did end up putting a deposit on a 2nd Prius at the dealership which obtained the Toyota franchise in that town (the prior Toyota dealer retaining their Chevrolet-Buick franchises) but my local dealer delivered finally, and I got my full deposit back on the car from the other town.
As for Prius’s being for non-car guys “only” I beg to differ!
Been a car nut my whole life, I’m on my 2nd Prius (got an ’08 in September last year, after only a 6 week wait).
The car showed me 51.8 mpg over the prior 150-160 miles when I pulled into the parking lot at work this morning.
I don’t think Prius sales have “tanked” if they are up year-on-year.
I did notice the local dealer had a couple on hand in January, and I wheeled in to visit on Saturday to pick up some brochures for a local eco-event downtown (where I showed off my Prius, as well as another guy, there was a Smart car there – everybody totally ignored the hybrid Ford SUV and hybrid Chevy SUV’s – which talks volumes). My sales-guy (two Prius sales to myself and counting) told me to warn folks that there was a six month waiting list for Prius again.
As of about two months ago, he had some cars on the lot.
I think that’s why sales are lower in May for Prius. They’re SOLD OUT.
Does anybody know how long of a waiting list there is for a Prius?
As noted, the inventory levels as of the end of April were at seven days. At that same time, the Pontiac G6 had inventories of 64 days and the Ford Fusion had 48 days.
There is undoubtedly a supply problem. You can bet that seven days translates into high prices and waiting lists in at least some parts of the country.
The tax credit expired on Toyota hybrids many months ago. 2008 year to date sales are slightly above the previous year. The tax credit would have no bearing on last month’s sales.
anyone know why toyota doesn’t include a line item for sales of the Matrix in their press release? And secondarily how many they may have sold?
Did a quick search on the tulsa and okc toyota dealer sites, looks like one dealer shows one prius available, but not in stock (probably on the truck or boat). Last summer we checked them out and there were 20-40 in stock around the state.
Great idea! Yaris stealing profits from the Prius!
Ok, let’s start something on Bad Branding. Or muddled marketing. What a blunder having two distincly different vehicles withn the same segment: Small high mileage cars.
gawdodirt :
Yeah, that’s some blunder. One is sold out and the other is selling like crazy at a profit. Toyota’s screwed.
It’s a good thing the domestics aren’t faced with that sort of headache… o_O
Maybe they can convert that Tundra plant into a Prius one, kill two birds with one stone.
This is probably the first month in decades where the Ford F-Series wasn’t the best selling vehicle in the country-and Toyota beat it with two seperate vehicles.
No one has missed that news, but here’s a question: has a foreign-brand car EVER been the #1 seller in any month before in U.S. history?
My car knowledge doesn’t go back very far, but I’m guessing unless maybe the Camry managed the feat at some point in the 1990s, this may be a first?
Toyota sales in Canada where up by 15%, whereas GM was down by 20% We are a small market but Toyota is doing quite well here, my local dealer had 171 Sales of new Cars in May, not bad for a very small market of 50,000 more or less
gawdodirt
The Prius is not a small car. It’s a full sized sedan. Like a Passat or Avensis.
So the Yaris and Prius are fighting different segments. The Yaris is for young, single, good looking, intelligent, sexy, fashionable urbanites (coincidentally, I own a Yaris!) and the Prius is for families.
I rarely ever see more than one person in a Prius. Sometimes two, and one time during the Memorial Day weekend, there was a full load in one on the NJ Turnpike, but it’s usually one.
Around here, young, single, good-looking, sexy, fashionable urbanites would rather be seen in a Mini or Mazda3, or a Smart even. I don’t think it’s cool to be in a xB, unless it’s billboarded up or something.
KAtie,
If the Pious is a full size sedan, I’m Dick Cheney.
Yaris? Young, good looking, sexy, inteligent, fashionable(?), BUT not yet alfluent, still paying student loans, too much time bloggin, eatin Ramen by the case, types?
Gotch…
The Prius is not a small car. It’s a full sized sedan. Like a Passat or Avensis.
In America, we consider those mid-size cars. Full-size cars for us would be the Taurus and the Lucerne. I believe in the UK they’re called battleships. :)
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/toyotas-scion-struggles-for-sales/
The rumors of Scion’s demise seem a little premature now, no?
rprellwitz :
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
anyone know why toyota doesn’t include a line item for sales of the Matrix in their press release? And secondarily how many they may have sold?
Toyota kind of cheats here. Technically, the Matrix is called the “Toyota Corolla Matrix”. It states so on the manual and window sticker, but it’s not badged or advertised as such. So the Matrix’s sales are combined with the Corolla’s in their sales charts. Now, the Matrix basically is a Corolla station wagon (same platform/engine/transmission), so it’s not that much of a cheat, but…
Does anybody know how long of a waiting list there is for a Prius?
Dealer by me shows 3 in stock and for sale.
Ah, the old Corolla Matrix argument. That one never gets old.
How differentiated must a product be before it simply must be counted separately. Dodge counts the Magnum separate from the Charger. Since the Magnum is really a Charger wagon, had they just called it the Charger Magnum, they could, I reckon, count them together. The old Sebring coupes and Sebring covertibles were not even built on the same platform, but they shared a name, and were counted together. Chevy lumped the Corsica and Beretta together. Clearly the Beretta was a Corsica coupe, but it said so nowhere and had distictive sheetmetal.
And then there are the trucks. You cannot tell me that an F150 has much in common these days with an F250HD.
The problem is sales are self-reported by the mfrs. There are no laws or even many standards governing this monthly ceebration. We can tear them apart all we want, but those arguments just become academic, much like trying to separate out fleet and retail sales. Bottom line is Matrix=Corolla, F250HD=F series, etc.
Perhaps people just can’t get credit buy a new car right now. Getting a Home Equity Line of Credit is now more difficult or impossible.
Unless Toyota is giving away sweet financing with the Prius, I think that a lot of people simple can’t afford it.
Also, more and more people are facing mortgage payment problems and don’t feel they can afford a new car right now, now matter how low the interest or price.
I’m wondering if maybe everyone who wants or can afford a Prius is close to getting one.
Toyota can not keep up with demand on the Prius. That is why the low sales figures. Toyota admitted this last year that demand outpacing output. Also, this why Toyota look to manufacture the Pruis in the U.S. In my area there are no Prii available among 5 Toyota dealers.
Toyota is still the best in the full line OEM’s. Honda is not a full line OEM. Honda may want to expedite that small hybrid.
For Honda there is no recession per Fuki-san.
Prius sales are COMPLETELY supply-limited, there is nothing more to say than that.
How about Scion sales, overall they are up by double digit percentage.
I pose a question now to TTAC staff: will you retract your comments about the demise of Scion, or that Scion was in big trouble?
Johnson :
I pose a question now to TTAC staff: will you retract your comments about the demise of Scion, or that Scion was in big trouble?
First, please keep in mind that there is no “party line” at TTAC. We accept blogs, reviews and editorials from all positions.
Second, I reported back in March that Scion sales had dropped for 16 straight months. That’s a fact.
Third, tempus fugit. Obviously, Scion has bounced back in a big way. Anyone making fuel-efficient cars is a big winner in today’s market. (Hence Aveo sales.)
Fourth, short term sales are not the ultimate arbiter of brand health. The Cayenne was an ENORMOUS hit for Porsche– which damaged the brand and positions them poorly for the AGW-related legislative environment.
Fifth, if you’re still smarting from Paul Neidermeyer’s xB review, deal. Our reviewers call it like they see it. Your sales may vary.