Did you know there are waiting lists for the 2018 Camry XSE with two-tone paint? And that the Camry’s share has increased 5 percentage points so far in 2018? Are you surprised that Toyota is quite happy to stay in the sedan market while the American Big Three drop out one-by-one? I didn’t know that about the first, I’m not at all surprised about the second, and I already predicted the third.
Toyota’s roots and global business is still very much in sedans, although of course they’re shifting production to more trucks too. The Corolla is the world’s best selling passenger car globally, and its latest generation (above) arrives here shortly with a big push towards younger buyers. And Toyota’s complete redesign of the Camry is paying off. And Toyota’s well established dominance of hybrids like the Prius are a key part of their portfolio.
The Big Three are in the process of their final capitulation of the passenger car business to Toyota and other import brands, and will remain as truck makers and a few specialty cars and SUVs. It all started a long time ago, and now it’s in the final stages. Who could have predicted that in 1970? or 1980?
Toyota of USA CEO Jim Lenz says: that Toyota will remain a “full-line manufacturer” even as some competitors throw in the towel. “If you look at some of the really critical segments — midsize passenger car, compact passenger car — those are [almost] 2-million-plus-a-year segments, so we have no desire to back out of segments,”
Toyota execs claim that U.S. consumers are leaving sedans in part because the cars haven’t been getting the investment they need to remain attractive. They point to the higher sales of the redesigned 2018 Camry as proof. Camry sales rose 2 percent in the first five months of this year. It’s the only one of the 10 top-selling midsize cars to post an increase in 2018. The rest of the segment is down 21 percent.
But not to be left behind in trucks, Toyota is increasing capacity for both its Tacoma and Tundra pickups, and an all-new RAV4 debuts this fall. The RAV4 has been the best selling non-pickup vehicle in recent months.
In the 70s, brands with “middle class” roots started to see a decline in Europe. As BMW and Mercedes-Benz went down market, buyers shifted to brands that had a premium cachet and better than average residuals….hence, the shrinking market share for large and then medium sized sedans in Europe. Yet, here in the U.S. car brand is not (quite) as big a factor….everyone seems to want SUVs or suv-looking vehicles.
I don’t care for any new Toyota car, apparently the driving dynamics are improving, but the styling? Inside AND outside….yuck.
I am in the market for a new car, and am strongly leaning to a sedan (a leftover Ford) or a truck (the 2019 Ranger?) but US car manufacturers give us few choices.
This must be how our Australian friends felt a few years ago.
America’s big three have finally failed. They’ve been failing for decades. Walking away from such an essential market will eventually be fatal.
There’s one US automaker committed to cars…Tesla. People have lined up around the block to buy their cars. It could outlive Ford, Chrysler, even GM. Come back in twenty years and see.
Perpetually losing money with half busy factories would be dumb. This ‘essential market’ is dying and will never come back in anything like its current form. Young people don’t want traditional sedans and there’s no reason to think that will ever change. If and when the US market goes on a fuel economy kick, probably due to an oil disruption, the new car market (the only market that actually matters to car makers) will demand electrics, not traditional gas economy cars. The next thing will be a new thing like the Tesla, not the Camry or Corolla. If the US makers have a future problem, it’s being ready to respond to that change, not a fashion change to traditional sedans that will not happen in the next ten years, if ever.
Obviously, Toyota boasting about its commitment to serving the sedan market with fresh product is puffery. Toyota’s super duper new car is barely gaining volume in a market that everyone else is running away from. It’s obviously a dying market and it would be stupid for anyone else to invest in it when the market leader is barely keeping its own factory busy with long term 0 percent financing and super low leases.
My best reply is to second what Jim Klein said below:
What’s most interesting is the volume is being given up voluntarily. Perhaps they really can’t make money on these vehicles, but I’d wager that the imports ARE making money on them. By just handing over the share while there are still substantial volumes being moved (i.e. Fusion), the imports don’t even look like they are beating the domestics, just providing replacements for what was given up.
Imported sedans aren’t running whole factories on their US sales. US sales of imported models are gravy on an investment that hopefully is being paid off in other markets. A modern auto factory is tooled to make 200K to 400K units, and it’s only worth doing if it’s planned to run at capacity. That’s why Ford didn’t bother bringing back the Ranger for a long time; even 100K+ units per year wasn’t enough volume–and that’s in a hot market for trucks, not a dying passenger car market. Ford didn’t bring the Ranger back til they thought it could keep an assembly line busy with help from the Bronco.
This is what sank domestic manufacturing in Australia. The most popular model moved 50K units, and the most popular brand moved 100K units. There’s no way to support a domestic factory on that volume against imports from efficient modern factories without tariffs, and it would be dumb to build a big modern factory in Australia and ship most of the output halfway around the world–esp without a network of suppliers whose products don’t have to be shipped halfway around the world to that factory.
Well, the Camry is selling that amount so they are running that kind of capacity. The Accord isn’t doing as well but either way both of them as well as the others (Hyundai/Kia, Nissan etc) apparently have more flexible assembly lines where they can run multiple models on one line. As an aside I think this is why Honda doesn’t really care that the Ridgeline isn’t setting the sales charts on fire as they can use the line for Odyssey, Pilot, MDX etc so if one week they need Ridgelines, fine, and if then there is no demand that’s fine too, just make more Pilots etc.
If the domestics can’t or won’t do the same or can’t find other markets to sell their product then that’s more of a failure on their part and their insular viewpoint (i.e. the US market is the only one that matters) than anything else. That’s been their problem since the ’70’s. There were glimmers of hope starting in the 90’s that they were taking a larger view but once again that “world-view” seems to have faded.
Toyota started the current Camry generation by shipping many of them from Japan and then transitioned production to the local factory. Honda historically has produced the Accord in multiple factories. I believe most of the others have as well. All of that is a product of never just focusing on ONE market, but from the outset realizing that it’s a big world out there and they need to sell to more than one market to be successful. Over time they were able to build more specialized variants for specific markets but generally found others to offload product as well (i.e. the US Camry wasn’t always available in Europe but was often available in the Middle East. The 2004 Accord in the US wasn’t offered in Europe, but instead THEIR 2004 Accord is what was sold here as the Acura TSX.
However the main point I suppose is that the volume imports are building the majority of the product IN THE US and beating the domestics at their own game on their own turf.
Toyota keeps their Kentucky factory running at full capacity with Camry, Avalon and Lexus production.
By dropping cars the domestics are leaving themselves unprepared for futures other than just more of today’s market. Change happens, could be another oil shock, or carbon pricing, or just a change in customers’ tastes.
Wall Street is squeezing the domestics for higher margins, squeezing executive bonuses in the process, so they’re turning their backs on the long term and feeding the short term.
Fusion sold 200K last year, enough to keep its factories in Mexico and Flat Rock going, and enough to justify real effort to outdo competitors with a better product. But there’s more short-term profit building SUVs in those factories, so they’re walking away from cars. Here’s hoping the domestics can survive when the world changes again, as it always does.
Yeah this is a lot of puffery. The Camry gains are from fleet dumps. If you look at the monthly and YTD numbers the picture becomes pretty clear. The Camry ended last year with a big bang and they did big fleet dumps to secure the #1 selling car title back from the Civic who was in the lead much of the year. If you look at the 2018 numbers the Camry did great, thanks to that fleet dumping and have been under last year’s numbers in Mar-May. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/nissan-and-toyota-s-secret-u-s-sales-weapon-fleet-customers
In Jan the Camry was up 24% year over year while and has sank every month since to the point where they are only up 2% YTD at the end of May compared to YTD May 2017.
Their stubbornness of keeping that car sales crown and not following the market is catching up with them as their operating income from the US was down 33% in their most recent fiscal year. http://corporatenews.pressroom.toyota.com/releases/tmc+announces+financial+results+for+fiscal+year+ended+march+31+2018.htm
So with the heavy fleet dumping, heavy lease subsidization, and it being the focus of their massive advertising campaigns I highly doubt that Toyota is making much if any money on the Camry.
Meanwhile silly Ford managed to earn 1.9b in the US in the first quarter of 2018. Compared to Toyota’s 1.2b earnings in the US for their year ending Mar 31st 2018.
If you look at full years and worldwide the picture isn’t nearly as rosy as a single domestic only quarter may make it look for Ford. I may not be looking at it correctly so please let me know if I am wrong but according to the Nasdaq annual filings here is what I see:
(Note that Ford’s annual reporting seems to be at the end of the year while Toyota is at the end of the first quarter 3 months later. )
Looking at it as Ford 12/31/2017 vs Toyota 3/31/2018 Toyota is walking all over Ford by a factor of at least 3 and a factor of up to 11 going back a few years. The most recent last twelve months shows Toyota making more net income that Ford over the last four years combined! I think Toyota can easily afford to spend a little on Camry commercials in the US.
Ford https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/f/financials
Full fiscal year ending 2017 Net Income $7 billion
2016 $4billion
2015 $7billion
2014 $1billion
Toyota https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tm/financials?query=income-statement
Full fiscal year ending 3/31/2018 Net Income 23 billion
2017 $16billion
2016 $20billion
2015 $11 billion
Maybe they (Toyota) are doing fleet dumps to keep their title but notice that they are doing so to gain the lead over ANOTHER IMPORT nameplate. Ford isn’t even in the game. And Camry residuals seem pretty strong even with all the fleet. Fusion isn’t exactly unseen at Hertz either.
Looking at the Toyota link you provided they reduced their US income but OMG did they make up for it in other regions. I guess we will see if their US “investment” starts to pay off during the rest of the year.
It’s entirely possible that Ford is doing better in the US and worse worldwide than Toyota because it’s making good decisions about its US operations and bad decisions about its worldwide operations.
In other words, dumping the US sedans that US buyers don’t want has been and is a good decision.
Ford is doing well in the US for one reason: it’s US trucks have gigantic profit margins, which are diluted by their weak sedans and such as well as their weak-mediocre-bad global performance. It’s a result of Americans’ love for F Series, not because of any brilliance of Ford’s doing.
Toyota does well all over the globe because they grew that business organically and steadily based on quality and efficient production. Their US performance is currently weak because of the same reasons that Ford’s are strong.
Which company has a more balanced and diverse financial performance? Which company has a market share about 4-5 times of the other?
This is from the February 1982 issue of Popular Mechanics:
As we mentioned, the (Toyota) Starlet cleaned up in our 1981 Popular Mechanics Owners Report roundup. Of the 12 cars we scrutinized, no other car carried away so many honors. The car with the worst workmanship rating, we’re sorry to report, was the Cadillac Sedan De Ville.
Toyota has been doing this for decades. Ironic here in that 36 years ago, a subcompact economy car gave its owners more satisfaction in perceived workmanship quality than a leading (at the time) luxury brand. It says a lot.
It’s not just that Toyota had/has a healthy relationship with their suppliers, as Paul stated, but also always valued a strong collaborative relationship with their workers. Too often in North America’s corporate culture, labor is traditionally simply not regarded with the same collective value to making the best product. Ultimately affecting the buyer’s experience as well.
Not surprising, even from the vantage point of rural flyover country and from a town where the Toyota dealer is off in the corner of the Chevrolet lot.
The new Camry is relatively prevalent and it’s not a bad looking car. With the Big Three handing over this market (a dumb move, but that wouldn’t be the first one) it’s hard to imagine growth subsiding anytime soon.
Kudos to Toyota.
Dealers in this notoriously high-priced city are selling base Corollas for under $18k. If you want a transportation appliance, you can’t go wrong with a Corolla at that price.
There are still many people who vociferously defend the (real or perceived) security of a trunk. I’m not one of them.
Toyota seems to be thinking of the end game. Despite their popularity, the Tacoma and Tundra are their weakest products – on purpose in my opinion. Now that Ford and FCA are out of the car business for serious people in North America, I’m guessing Akio is waiting for GM to throw in the towel as well and then . . . You know the rest of the story. There is more than money at stake.
Tacoma is not “weak”, in my opinion, it is selling well even with an “old” design.
OTOH, the Tundra is just a place marker and not a threat to Big 3 full size pickups.
I’m not a fan of sedans *as such*, but that new Corolla hatchback is going on my short list. Even the styling is OK with me – it’s better on the base trim level which is the one I’m interested in anyway.
We’re actually getting the Corolla hatchback? Holy shit! I can’t believe it! I sort of want one!
The Corolla hatchback debuted in the US in 2016, as the Scion iM. Upon the demise of Scion, it became the Toyota Corolla iM.
There’s a new model for 2019, simply called the Toyota Corolla Hatchback.
Cool, the sedans are still alive.
That is what I have ( mostly) been driving for the last two decades, perhaps I like the “trunkification”.
I think the last generation of the Camry is gorgeous.
I don’t believe that Toyota (and Nissan for that matter) couldn’t make a world- (ok, US-) beating full size pickup truck if they really wanted to. They certainly have the capacity, they definitely have the engineering talent, and they have the deep pockets. Perhaps the reason is purely political, nothing else really makes sense.
As before with cars, start by whittling away at the edges of the country and work your way in towards the middle. They certainly started doing that with the small pickups in the ’70’s and ’80’s and then sort of stopped and held steady, if even that. While both have large trucks that are not bad at all if you need or want a truck (without having a specific need for a specialized variant), they could easily develop the lines further, offer more engine options, flood the market, etc.
Maybe we will see this start to play out over the next decade if the US manufacturers totally give up on the car market. There really isn’t anything that the US manufacturers do “better” in the CUV market either, so that may well be the next portion to be given up.
Sure, there are some people that “must have” a domestic make truck. Today, that is. But I think there are plenty more that really don’t give a crap about who makes it and would merely buy the one that A) has the best price or value, B) “speaks” to them with its styling and/or C) whatever other parameter springs to mind on purchase day. When looked as a “generic” item for getting someone from point A to point B and hauling some undefined items, there really is no reason why Ram or F150 or Silverado/Sierra or Titan or Tundra is “better” than any of the others. This batch of people are growing, not diminishing and may do so even more as the makers get more and more one-trick-ponyish.
What’s most interesting is the volume is being given up voluntarily. Perhaps they really can’t make money on these vehicles, but I’d wager that the imports ARE making money on them. By just handing over the share while there are still substantial volumes being moved (i.e. Fusion), the imports don’t even look like they are beating the domestics, just providing replacements for what was given up.
I don’t think it’s quite that easy. You think the Tundra when it came out was purposely not more competitive?
The big 3 will spend whatever it takes to defend their truck positions.The amounts that they can afford to spend to bring out new generations every few years, and with new powertrains can only be done because they already have the huge volume and margins.
Back in the 70s and 80s when pickups weren’t so big and madly profitable, the Big 3 were much less willing to spend such huge amounts. Look at how long some of those generations were built by the Big 3.
Toyota and Nissan are not going to “buy” more market share, since that would be very expensive. They’re already very concerned about pressure on profit margins, especially Nissan, which lost money in their US ops, and even Toyota USA had a bad year. No way are they going to do a moon shot for the pickup market.
You know a recession is inevitable at some point, and then the Big 3 will have to increase incentives big time to move trucks. Remember how cheap they were in 2008-2009?
Toyota is in it for the long game, but also need to mind their profit margins. If they can incrementally increase Tundra sales without spending more, they’ll be happy.
A full-on siege would just create losses for everyone. And bad PR.
I think that’s exactly it, they don’t want the bad PR and are playing the extremely long game. I also think to some extent they are remembering the ’80’s in regard to Import quotas on vehicles as well as tariffs in the motorcycle market. If the Tundra was such a huge success that it put the domestics at risk, I think there would be a backlash, perhaps less so back when the current Tundra was introduced but certainly with the current administration (and I am trying/hoping to keep politics out of this post). I completely understand that much/most of the production for the US market is now stateside as opposed to back then but looking at some of the proposals out of Washington don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that there could be a proposal that favors domestic ownership as opposed to just production.
For example, there is no reason that Toyota could not put one of their excellent 6cylinder engines in the Tundra (either the 3.5 or the 4.0) to offer a slightly less expensive version instead of just the V8’s, especially in a lighter duty (2wd shortbed) variant. But they don’t anymore (they used to). The plant has the capacity to build a lot more than they do. On the other end, I could also imagine a Tundra heavy hauler, perhaps with diesel technology from Hino or someone. Look at Nissan, their diesel is made by Cummins. Yeah, it happens to have some issues and the 5/8 ton Titan has some other baked-in flaws, but conceptually I didn’t see that Nissan/Cummins tie-in coming.
But I agree, they don’t need to buy the market share in trucks especially since the domestics are giving them the market share in smaller vehicles. They will happily take that and wait for either a big stumble or another shift in the market. If/when there is a recession or there is a further oil spike (we didn’t think we would see the current prices again so soon), then that would certainly hurt those with only trucks to fall back on. Much of the growth and profit has been in higher-end versions, which will be the first to pull back as opposed to those that HAVE to have a truck (Fleet, F150XL level etc).
But I don’t think anyone should take it for granted that the domestics are the only ones with the absolute capability to design and build a great truck line. The one thing we can take for granted is that the domestics think extremely short term, such is the way of US-style corporate mentality. This worked great when the only competition was others with the same mindset, but not anymore.
Where is the opportunity for a Toyota pickup in the US? As with Toyota passenger cars, Ford is both the market and image leader in US trucks. There’s no significant market for US style full size trucks as personal vehicles elsewhere in the world, so there’s no way to significantly undercut domestic makers with an imported product from a low cost market. Customers are supremely happy with domestic products and will switch to a different domestic brand if they aren’t happy, not to an import name.
Note that the Canadian pickup market already is more utilitarian than the US, yet Toyota and Nissan are virtually non existent in that market.
While an overall decrease in truck sales would hurt the domestic brands, and a decrease in Rebel Platinum Countryboy Brougham take rate would hurt profitability, there’s no reason to think US buyers would suddenly prefer a stripped Tacoma to an F150 Xl. I don’t have a sales breakout at hand, but I wouldn’t be surprised if US XL sales already exceed total Tundra production. If Toyota could take sales from domestics with a low end model, they’d already be doing it. Ford and GM already are at least a full generation ahead of the Tundra, so they could coast through a recession without investment and still have a better product, and they will not be beaten on fuel economy unless Toyota powers the Tundra with sails or rubber bands.
The threats to domestic trucks are overall market forces and fashion trends, not competition from a company that doesn’t do domestic style trucks as well.
If Toyota had sold more Tundras and Tacomas along with the big SUV Sequoia than Prius. I guess it could had hurted their green image.
However, it might take a while before we see a Camry 4-door hardtop just to be different from other Camry owners who own the regular sedan.
The Tundra isn’t exactly a sales dud. Sure, the numbers pale compared to the F Series, but at least in California (where the F Series is very popular) Tundras are common for both personal use, and tradesman and fleet commercial use. And I suspect it brings in much higher margins for Toyota than deeply discounted domestic full size trucks.
The Tundra is a dud. Toyota may not actually lose money on it, because margins on full size trucks are generous, but Toyota did not go into this business to sell 100K full size trucks per year–about 5 percent of the truck market, competing against companies they crushed in the conventional passenger car market and with a generation of goodwill earned by its passenger cars..
The reason Toyota doesn’t compete on price is that cutting prices wouldn’t help. Most buyers actually *prefer* the domestic products.
Toyota is selling trucks to its diehard brand loyalists, like Chrysler did 50 years ago. Chrysler’s obsolete straight axle Dodge pickups had more market share than Toyota’s best shot at the market.
Speaking of margins per vehicle, Ford sells 300K F Series Super Dutys per year with an average transaction price over $50K. By itself, that part of Ford’s business has significantly higher margins than Tundra could possibly have, and it’s three times as large. Ford’s Super Duty business is about the same volume as Toyota’s combined Tacoma and Tundra.
When the Tundra hit the market in 2007 it seemed like Toyota was trying to go after the pickup market hard. Yet even though I’d argue it was probably the best overall pickup at that time, it still failed to unseat the big three. Despite the strongest sales year for Tundra in 2007, the market died off quickly in 2008 and by 2009 Tundra sold less than 100k units.
Toyota has since not done a major update on the truck. Yet sales actually increased with time and now is averaging about 115 to 120K annually. I am sure with the trucks basic design dates back to 2007 the design and engineering costs have been long amortized and so I am sure these trucks have a decent profit margin.
It seems to me Toyota has realized making a dent in the large pickup market is difficult. Despite the fact that the 2007 Tundra was a segment leader it still didn’t pull many away from their US counterparts. I am sure much of it is because many customers are satisfied with their trucks. However, I account much of it to brand loyalty and the ultra conservative nature of many truck buyers who are unwilling to even try something that isn’t a US brand.
At the present Toyota seems to be satisfied with letting the Tundra sell at the rate it does with no major investment. Toyota’s San Antonio plant seems to be satisfied with number of Tundras and Tacomas being produced.
While the current Tundra is outdated realistically it does the job well enough for most customers. The biggest area I see it falling short in is the lack of improvement in fuel economy. This is the only factor that would make me not consider a Tundra were I shopping today. I could care less about all the other crap the put into trucks these days. However, it has consistently lead the long term reliability stats which for me is is worth a lot, maybe even the MPG a penalty. Most Tundra owners I know switched because of a bad experience with another brand. And most that buy them today seem to be most concerned with reliability and resale.
The Toyota Camry will be offered in Europe again, which means the end for the D-segment Euro-Toyota Avensis for sure.
Currently, my personal favorite mainstream-automaker’s sedan is the brand new Peugeot 508. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
Toyota will just keep on doing whats its been doing, building and selling reliable well made cars, lots of people buy them and are perfectly happy with them so why not, plus the competition has given up of its own volition, sounds like a recipe for success to me.
The Peugeot’s door character lines remind me of a Dodge Charger.
A friend has a 508 wagon. He’s happy!
Here’s the new one. I can’t think of a current D-segment car that isn’t available as a sedan and as a wagon. As an automaker, it’s a must to offer both in this segment.
GM’s retrenchment and abandonment of the major world markets, Ford’s similar retreat from various market niches will lead to something similar to GM’s ultimate fate, and what will that be? Likely something similar to Napoleon’s army’s retreat from Moscow, we can hope not, but continual ineptness in war and business is rewarded by disappearance. Ask Woolworth’s, ask Digital Computer, ask PanAm, ask the ever diminishing Sears , ask about the evaporating GE, ask about the unforgiveness of business competition, and learn how business history is littered with the names of previously thought seemingly invincible business entities. Grow or die. Continual, relentless retreat leads to ultimate disappearance and replacement. The great business leader, Sloan, would understand, as we will ultimately understand. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.
Sloan would also tell you that consolidation of a maturing industry is inevitable. During his chairmanship, he saw dozens of US manufacturers consolidated to five, and he lived to see one of those five quit building vehicles.
All this is somewhat sad but inevitable. The domestics are squeezed from the top and the bottom. Direct competition from the middle,Toyota and Honda, find the Domestics at a disadvantage. The Japanese offerings are considered to be a better value quality wise. The direction that the market changes is not what we might want but it follows the majority. As has been discussed before the utility of the sedan has been supplanted by the hatchback. That being said I still miss the Personal Luxury Coupes of the past.
I had one of these (in SE 4-cylinder form) as a rental in Toronto last Christmas. I like the styling, and it was much better to drive than the other Camrys I’ve driven, but it had a defective (and absolutely infuriating) rear seatbelt chime that was going off when nobody was there.
Who will also happily get sedan sales from the big 3 will be Kia. Take a note.
Hyundai Motor fired its US president 18 months ago because its US dealers were ankle deep in sedans that no one would buy, because US new vehicle buyers do not want sedans. Kia’s management probably watched him carry his stuff out of the building.
Like everyone else, Kia is watching its sedan sales shrink and SUV sales increase, because US new vehicle buyers do not want sedans. The Kia they want is the Sportage, which is comparable to the RAV4 and CRV, the most popular cars at Toyota and Honda.
The Sedona minivan probably is a special problem because Chrysler is flooding the retail market with cut-price Grand Caravans, both used rentals and new.
Not counting actual trucks, the 20 most popular passenger vehicles in the US are crossovers, SUVS, CUVs, and jacked up station wagons with fender flares, because new vehicle buyers do not want sedans. Five of the top ten are freaking JEEPS. Even the Jeep’s backward cousin Dodge Journey is in the top 20, because it’s an SUV/CUV and it’s cheap.
The idea that there is an unserved market for volume sedans like the Camry and Corolla is silly. Most new vehicle buyers prefer sedan alternatives. Everyone else prefers the sedan experts, Toyota and Honda, who are happy to serve them and have forgotten the salad days when they sold their sedans for MSRP.
Not counting actual trucks, the 20 most popular passenger vehicles in the US are crossovers, SUVS, CUVs, and jacked up station wagons with fender flares, because new vehicle buyers do not want sedans
I don’t know where you’re getting your data from, but it’s very different from what I consider good data, like this
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2018/04/top-30-best-selling-vehicles-in-america-march-2018/
Even including trucks and SUVs (all vehicles) the Camry is #5 and the Civic #7. And there’s Zero Jeeps in the top ten. Other sedans are in the top 30, but no Dodge Journey. Where are you getting this from??
That’s what I did – needed a car quick so off to the volume Kia store in Columbus to dump my daughter in law’s dying Chevy for a low buck lease on an Optima. Considering the total money that driving the Optima 24k miles over the next 24 months will cost I couldn’t pass it up. The LX trim Optima is a pretty nice car – only thing it’s really lacking I wish it had are heated seats.
Though my daily driver is a Subaru Forester I don’t have a SUV/CUV fetish – sedans are just fine by me.
What a fantastic thread to read- it’s amazing the depth and breadth of knowledge the CC Commentariat have. Thanks to all of you.
As I’ve said here before, we bought a new car about four months ago, and for the first time in 20 years, no marque was off the table. We only had two requirements:
– Hatchback, no trunk.
– Bigger than the Mini we were turning in, but smaller in overall length than a midsize SUV/crossover/wagon. We live in a major city, have a narrow garage spot, and frequently have to parallel park on crowded streets. Plus we are a childless married couple and have people in the back seat, like, once or twice a year. If we go out with other folks, we’re probably going to have a drink or 2 so we cab/public transit out.
As you probably know, that’s a relatively small pool of vehicles in the US market to choose from. We looked at the Prius and the CHR (I may be wrong on that particular alphanumeric, but it’s the crossover smaller than the CR-V.). My wife didn’t like the Prius and we don’t drive enough that a hybrid makes sense from a fuel consumption perspective. But when we sat in the CH-R in the dealer, it was just like… “uh, no.” Interior by Rubbermaid. No matter how good the styling (I like it but admit it’s polarizing), the reliability, or the driveability, the interior was dark, penalty box grade. Not anywhere I want to park my ass for the next 5-10 years.
I feel that when Toyota really wants to do something well, they can beat anyone in the world, but they can half-ass it with the best of them when they’re not committed to a segment. And perhaps for some reason pickups are not one of those segments. Maybe they don’t want to ruffle any trade feathers by dominating cars and trucks. Or maybe they’re not capable from a cultural perspective what drives the domestic pickup market.
We went with a GM product (which surprised even me, and I’m still kinda shocked my wife agreed) and the next closest vehicle was a Hyundai. In that market segment the Toyota and Honda offerings were also-rans.
Buick Encore?
Yep. My wife went from “eh” to loving it to a week later. As long as it can remain reliable being driven about 3,000 miles a year we are very happy with the purchase.
Funny thing about the Buick, when it came down to it it was a race between 2 Korean cars. Never thought I’d own a Daewoo. 🙂
It seems to be a comment sentiment here and elsewhere that Toyota and Lexus’s polarizing styling may be their downfall, but aside from the “Predator”-style front grilles, the rest of the car seems to be to be largely conventional, even a little bit behind the times.
*the rest of the car’s exterior, that is. I don’t consider myself well-informed enough on car interior style trends to have an opinion on what Toyota’s doing inside right now.
i had read a few months back that Camry sales were down despite the redesign; I guess they’ve picked up since. Interesting that the also-redesigned Accord isn’t doing as well – Honda is pushing forward with small 4 cylinder turbos exclusively throughout the line whereas Toyota is sticking with NA fours and V6s, and automatic transmissions exclusively. I guess sedan buyers prefer the more traditional approach. I actually find the XLE Camry interior to be stylish – the dash especially. The Accord looks bland to me from the inside.
The Camry LE hybrid seems to be a popular choice for full-time Uber/Lyft drivers, with mileage almost as good as a Prius. But why did Toyota use cheaper batteries in the higher-trim Camry hybrids that kill the high gas mileage?
Glad you asked, I looked into it and learned something. The latest generation of Prius and Camry hybrid use either a nickel metal hydride battery like previous generations, or a lithium ion battery like pure EVs use. The lithium ion battery is lighter, denser and more efficient, so that version gets better mileage. Curiously, in the Prius the lithium ion battery is only in a more expensive “Eco” model, while in the Camry it’s only in the base model as you said.
HybridCars.com has a theory about why: Toyota thinks that the people most concerned with fuel economy and value will be buying the base trim (Camry). The SE and XLE are more expensive and heavier, so eking out every last tenth of a mile per gallon isn’t the priority. Putting the lighter li-ion battery in what is already the lightest car makes a big impact on fuel economy.
That hybrid Camry is an attractive car to this 18-year Prius driver. For one thing its face doesn’t look like a Japanese mask!
That difference is likely due to how god damn popular hybrid Toyotas have become in fleet services like taxi’s, Uber, and Lyft. Living in Chicago the past several years- if it wasn’t a Hybrid Toyota of some sort, your ass got an old Panther or that weird VPG-MP1 van thing. Yeah, I’ll take the Toyota. The mileage difference between the batteries suggest “fleet” use to me.
At least this Camry looks different. The past three or four generations have looked like alternative design studies for each other, with no notable progress to show which one came before what. This one looks interesting.
It’s still no Mazda or Kia though. And that front is the stuff of nightmares.
Agreed on the seeming lack of evolution. I actually found the generation before the last one looked more modern and memorable than the generation that followed it!
The new generation looks lower and sportier with a lower beltline but it is colour and trim dependant. The XSE (or whatever nonsense name we call it here) looks great in white.
By the way, Pete, have you ever been able to figure out the Camry naming system? People think alphanumeric monikers are dumb but Toyota makes up silly names. I didn’t mind Seca on the Corolla hatches and I get Altise is the base trim, but then there’s been Ateva, Atara (with an alphanumeric after it, even!), Azura…
They all sound like cholesterol medicine or sweeteners.
Although stone reliable and in many years perhaps the best sedan for the money in the world, the Camry’s styling has always left me wanting. Never terrible, but never memorable. The perfect definition of bland. This latest generation has changed that for me. I find it easily the most attractive Camry ever and the stylists have actually lowered the belt line, something I hope starts a trend. The greenhouse/windows look bigger and visibility has to be better. I hope it’s a trend that catches on.
Some quite interesting comments here about the dying sedan market in the US. My guess is that the sedan market, propped by fleets and rentals, will always be about a third of total vehicle sales a year. Honda and Toyota will satisfy the bulk of that market, with the other Asian brands competing for the rest. I see Ford’s decision to leave the sedan market in purely financial terms. It’s trucks sell for $50K plus and Ford makes $10K profit on every one of them. Why would they tie up production capacity on anything less?
Because by giving up on cars they’re not a full line automaker any more. They’ll lose the experience and car customers will forget them. When the market changes Ford will suffer.
Wow, great discussions on this thread this morning! Well thought, and considerate!
My two cents…Sedans are not the issue. What really is at hand is the US companies total focus on short term gains, versus Toyota (and many of the Asian marques as well) and the long term view. As the Big Three became more focused on shareholders and profit than long term survival and reinvestments in factories and workers, they lost what made them great. They let beancounters take over, killed off design and engineering leadership, and foisted crap on the buying public. GM led the way, but Ford and what remains of Chrysler followed willingly. The only thing that remains profitable are the big trucks and SUVs, as the foreign companies realize they only sell in volume here in North America, specifically the US, and with our chicken tax, it doesn’t make sense to engineer for this market only. Smaller trucks that sell worldwide are the specialty of the Asians, specifically Toyota’s HiLux, which seems to sell very well everywhere but here. Ford ceded sedans in the US due to lack of shareholder support, not US sales. FCA did it 2 years ago, and share prices increased, so Ford willingly followed suit. If they followed a more measured, long term view, they would simply allocate more money towards product that will sell worldwide, not just in the US. In this case, it may work, as Ford will still sell sedans in Europe, and can bring back the engineering if the poo hits the fan and sedans become fashionable again here. Hyundai may end up buying FCA, which would give them the chance to sell Ram trucks along with their sedans and SUVs and have Jeep to provide cash along the way. Again, this shows long term thought, not short term gain. Greedy shareholders and the CEO and boards that support them will willingly forgo future gain to avoid short term pain.
Maybe the new Camry is selling well because it’s one of the few Japanese vehicles out there that doesn’t have a bloody CVT. Thumbs down to Toyota for no longer offering a manual in any Camry model, but at least if you choose one of these you don’t have to feel like you’re driving a sewing machine with a slipping clutch.