DETROIT — Toyota Motor North America expects to gain U.S. market share in 2019 despite a fourth straight year of lower company sales, thanks to increased output of midsize Tacoma and full-size Tundra pickups.
Asia's largest automaker projects total U.S. deliveries at Toyota and Lexus to slip about 2.3 percent to 2.37 million.
Toyota’s Jim Lentz expects U.S. sedan sales to hold at around 30 percent of the market.
But it also forecasts industrywide light- vehicle sales falling about 3.7 percent to 16.6 million to 16.8 million, Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota's North American business, said last week in an interview at the Detroit auto show.
If that plays out as Lentz expects, Toyota's market share would tick up to 14.2 percent from 14 percent in 2018.
U.S. sales have slipped in recent years for the maker of the Camry, Corolla and Prius cars as American consumers are choosing pickups, SUVs and crossovers over sedans by a ratio of more than 2-to-1. Last year, Toyota's U.S. car sales fell 12 percent from 2017, while light-truck deliveries jumped 8 percent.
Lentz said he's looking forward to getting more Tacomas from a new plant in Guanajuato, Mexico, which should allow the company's San Antonio factory to shift its mix more heavily to Tundras.
The Tundra is late in its life cycle and remains fifth among six nameplates in its segment. Its volume is well behind those of Ford, Chevrolet and Ram pickups, but Lentz said greater Tundra production would lead to increased Tundra sales.
"If I could build more Tundras today, I could sell them," Lentz said during a discussion last week at the Automotive News World Congress. He said the Guanajuato plant "is ramping up as fast as they can" and eventually will add about 100,000 units of capacity to the hot-selling Tacoma. That should mean a half-million pickups for Toyota dealers to sell next year.
Lentz told the World Congress audience that he expects U.S. sedan sales to settle at their current level of around 30 percent of the market, given stable fuel prices and other factors.
"I think 30 percent [cars] is probably where we're going to be for the foreseeable future," Lentz said.
"Even if you look at fuel prices — last week, I bought gas for my car for $1.69 a gallon in Texas — if fuel prices go up, if you look at a Camry versus a RAV4, the fuel economy between those vehicles is about the same."
Lentz said if fuel prices rise, it's clear that consumers "will just buy more fuel-efficient SUVs and not necessarily go back to sedans. But with that said, I don't think we're going to see a drop in the percentage of sedans at the rate that it's been. I think we're pretty close to where that's going to be."
Lentz acknowledged that Toyota expected a decline in sales last year that didn't happen.
"I think we kind of underestimated the impact of the president's tax plan, but I think that that's going to be kind of an impact in '18 and not necessarily in '19. I think it just stimulated some business — even the rent-a-car business." When U.S. sales rose to 17.3 million last year from 17.2 million in 2017, it "surprised everybody."
Send us a letter
Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.
