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.
I’m not sure that it’s the recall affecting sales, more like the sales freeze.
Stopping sales does tend to adversely affect one’s sales.
In my haste, I left those two key words “sales freeze” out. Fixed.
I have to imagine that it is both (Toyota love and all not with standing), even without the sales freeze anyone sitting on the fence more than likely would still be sitting there waiting for this to pass.
Toyota keeps pointing out that “no Lexus division vehicles are affected by the pedal recall.” So, if you want a smaller chance of pedal failure, buy our Lexus product. Otherwise, get used to some unintended acceleration.
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%.
Now that’s a four-star crash!
Well played sir!
How about 57% drop in the Sienna sales? And it is not even included into recall.
That may well be related to the new Sienna coming on line.
Probably waning inventory of the old Sienna. There were probably no Siennas built for a month while they changed the production line for the new model.
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.
I’ll take neither.
Fanboy much?
Obamamill? Give me a break…
Normally, I would think any mention of politicians having an impact on a recall such as this as silly conspiracy theory. But, an article in the Detroit News gives me pause for thought:
The US Transportation Secretary, Ray Lahood, said “We’re not finished with Toyota”. He’s also considering imposing civil penalties on Toyota. Those aren’t the words of a politically neutral person who’s goal is to ensure safety. It sounds like he has an axe to grind.
Link:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100202/AUTO01/2020414/NHTSA-considers-imposing-civil-penalty-over-Toyota-recalls
I’m not impressed with Toyota knowing about the badly designed CTS pedals since 2007 (another TTAC article mentioned they’d revised the friction shoe a couple times in the past due to customer complaints) and making incremental revisions to production cars to fix problems but not recalling cars with older versions of the pedals. However, haven’t all (or nearly all) reported cases of runaway cars causing injury been due to floormats (ie operator error)? It also seems odd that Toyota hasn’t hammered the dealers for improperly installing the mats (eg two on top of each other). The dealers, IMHO, should be liable for injuries/deaths due to floormat error induced crashes.
Gee, we finally have an NHTSA which is starting to hold manufacturers’ feet to the fire. About time.
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.
The Tundra (like the lexus division before it) was not planned to make money for many years, Toyota would cover the losses with it’s immense profits from the camry and corolla (walmart mastered this strategy), while taking truck sales one at a time (every tundra sold is an F150/silverado not sold) and it would just wear down detroit’s last profit center. (same for lexus vs. cadillac and lincoln). The problem is the landscape has changed, Ford went headstrong back into cars, GM went through BK, and the 16m/yr market this was all based on collapsed, yen appreciation, etc.
So yes the tundra is a disaster, but when originally planned it was intended to put the final nail in detroit’s coffin (another great case study some day)