Toyota’s Senior Vice President for Operations Bob Carter has been quite the chatty cathy Thursday. According to Reuters, the automaker is planning to boost production of its Tundra and Tacoma to help meet demand for trucks next year, in part, because supplies of the trucks are so low today.

Toyota has roughly 20 days supply of its Tundra and only 10 days supply of its new Tacoma, which has sold like hell since it was introduced last month.

“If you were to ask any of our U.S. dealers what they want, I’d say every one of them would say ‘More trucks,'” Carter told Reuters. Or more Tacomas?

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Executives at Toyota say they expect extraordinary car sales to continue for two more years — although they may not be record-breaking years — before the industry finally slows from its current pace, Bloomberg reported (via Detroit News).

Low gas prices and a better economy will lead automakers to nearly 18 million car sales this year, which could surpass the previous record of 17.4 million set in 2000.

Next year may not be as good as this year, according to Bob Carter, senior vice president of operations for Toyota in the U.S., but it could be close. Even at 17.4 million sales for 2016, industry-wide, “you’re still going to see a smile on all of our faces,” he told Bloomberg.

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Surely Volkswagen of America, tarnished by daily revelations related to its September diesel emissions scandal, would report an October sales decrease, right?

No, as we discussed earlier this month, incentives and a booming market helped Volkswagen to an October sales increase — of 74 extra sales.

In October 2015, industry-wide sales jumped 14 percent to more than 1.45 million units with above-average improvements from General Motors, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and Hyundai-Kia.

Further to those results, these are the numbers behind the numbers.

5 x 10K: October marked the fifth occasion in 2015 — the fifth in the last 40 months — in which Ford sold more than 10,000 Mustangs in a single month. October’s total was just the fifth-highest achieved this year so far, but we’ve long since left prime Mustang buying season as the car is traditionally stronger in the spring and early summer. Prior to the Camaro’s return, Ford was selling nearly 14,000 Mustangs per month in 2006. The Blue Oval is averaging 10,632 in 2015. Read More >

After officially giving the Mazda2 its North America reveal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in January, Mazda Canada announced, nearly 10 months later, it will not sell the subcompact hatchback in the country.

“Following a thorough evaluation of the B-car segment, Mazda Canada has decided not to launch the new generation Mazda2 in Canada,” Mazda Canada said in a statement released Monday.

Instead, the company will focus on its CX lineup, including the CX-3, CX-5 and new, upcoming CX-9 to be revealed for the first time this week in Los Angeles.

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We haven’t held back our critique of Toyota’s handling of its Scion sub-brand.

Though Scion held such promise a decade ago, replacing the hot-selling first-generation xB with a mostly ignored, overweight, second-generation xB was a ticket to failure. Allowing the once-popular tC to linger mostly unchanged and mostly unathletic for more than a decade is akin to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. A flash in the pan sports car, the FR-S, wasn’t – couldn’t be – the answer to the brand’s troubles.

Signs of life are once again appearing at Scion, however, and not from the most expected places. Read More >

Nine years ago, General Motors began selling two different vehicles off its full-size Lambda platform, the GMC Acadia and Saturn Outlook.

Remember the Outlook? Of course you don’t.

By 2007, GM was also selling the Buick Enclave. By the end of 2008, GM added the Chevrolet Traverse.

Now it’s late 2015. GM is still selling the first generation of their Lambda platform crossovers. A lot of them.

GM also continues to sell the six-year-old versions of their Theta platform crossovers, as well. A lot of them. More than they’ve ever sold before. Read More >

In October 2015, not the first time, Jeep was FCA’s meal ticket in the United States.

Little more than one month ago, we discussed the fact that non-Jeep sales at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ U.S. division were unhealthy at best, particularly given the boom experienced by the industry as a whole.

Fortunately for FCA, October was different. Combined sales at Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, and Ram were up six percent last month. (The five lower-volume brands are down one percent, year-to-date.) Yet across the FCA lineup, as year-over-year sales improved by 25,065 units, Jeep accounted for 18,363 of those extra sales on its own, or 73 percent of the increased volume. Read More >

Jaguar Land Rover will trim $6.8 billion from its expenses by 2020, in part, because of slowing auto sales in China, Reuters reported.

The automaker will consolidate models to common lines, overhaul its supply chain and build 1 million cars by 2020, according to sources familiar with the plan.

The plan, which is called Leap 4.5 (presumably because the plan cuts £4.5 billion), will also help the automaker afford increasingly difficult emissions standards.

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The Ford F-Series will end 2015 as America’s best-selling truck line and the best-selling vehicle line overall. Yes, there are two months remaining on the calendar, but there will be no unseating of the Ford, which built up a 137,400-unit lead over the second-ranked vehicle over the course of 2015’s first ten months.

The F-Series isn’t the only vehicle to secure its position at the front of its respective pack. These are the kinds of stories typically not published until the beginning of January, but we already know that the level of dominance enjoyed by certain nameplates is so high that they won’t – they can’t – be caught. Read More >

Forget the SUVs for a moment. Cadillac sold more than 100,000 cars in 2013 with similar totals achieved by the ATS, XTS, and CTS. The market has expanded since then, albeit not nearly as much on the car side of the ledger as in the light-truck portion.

Nevertheless, Cadillac will likely sell fewer than 70,000 cars in calendar year 2015.

Is the upcoming CT6 the answer the Cadillac’s car woes, or just another big Cadillac that will do little more than generate all its showroom activity by stealing sales from the CTS and XTS? Read More >

Improve. Increase. Rise. Grow.

These are all words that can be applied to the status of Volkswagen’s sales in the United States in October 2015.

Yes, that Volkswagen. The brand which, it was revealed in late September, was intentionally cheating on emissions tests with four-cylinder diesel engines, powerplants found under the hood of approximately one-fifth of the vehicles sold by the company in America. The brand which has seen its share price tumble as more negative information is uncovered each day. The brand which was forced to set aside billions of euros to cover some of the costs of a massive, yet-to-take-place recall.

Yes, that brand, Volkswagen, sold 74 more new vehicles in October 2015 than they did one year earlier, a 0.2-percent year-over-year increase during a period in which the auto industry produced a 13.6-percent gain. Read More >

Cadillac announced Monday that deliveries of its 2016 Cadillac Touring 6 sedan — or CT6 — will begin in March with a starting price of $54,490 when equipped with a 2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine.

The new top-of-the-range Cadillac sedan will also be available with a 3.6-liter V-6 paired with all-wheel drive and a $56,490 price tag or Cadillac’s new 3-liter twin-turbocharged V-6 sporting all-wheel drive and a $65,390 MSRP. A crème de la crème CT6 Platinum will sticker for $84,460.

All CT6s will send power to the wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission and all prices include a $995 destination fee because you’re definitely paying that.

But what of the CTS?

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration selected former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater as an independent monitor over Fiat Chrysler Automobiles safety compliance, the automaker announced Friday.

Slater was transportation secretary under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. After his federal post, Slater has held a slew of automobile safety-related posts including his recent appointment as special counsel to Takata.

Slater was the first black director for the Federal Highway Administration and the second black transportation secretary.

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General Motors will lay off around 500 workers and eliminate one shift at its Orion Assembly due to sagging demand for small cars, the automaker announced Friday. Those workers may be sent to a nearby plant.

Automotive News first reported on the layoffs.

According to a statement from a GM spokesman, the automaker will “adjust plant production capacity to align with market demand” and eliminate one shift that builds the Sonic. Demand for the Sonic has largely remained flat since the subcompact’s introduction in 2011.

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Hyundai said Thursday that its quarterly profit fell 23 percent after slowing sales in China overshadowed gains made in Europe and North America, Bloomberg reported (via Automotive News).

The automaker reported a net income of $1 billion during the third quarter of 2015, which ended on Sept. 30. The loss is in contrast to automakers such as General Motors and Daimler, who both reported gains in China, despite that country’s slowing economy.

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