Toyota ratchets down Tundra expectations; increases Camry production
While Toyota expects to see overall growth in the US market next year, the company is cutting production estimates for its new San Antonio full-size truck plant. Originally expected to start at its full capacity of 200,000 units per year, the automaker now expects to build 150,000 Tundra pickups there in 2007. To blame is a shrinking full-size truck market, led by high fuel prices and a decrease in housing starts (we've seen data that strongly correlates the housing market to pickup truck sales). Stealing sales away from the established leaders won't be easy, either, especially not with GM's new Silverado and Sierra hitting showrooms ahead of the redesigned Tundra.
Toyota has doubled its order for Camrys from Subaru's Indiana plant, however, and now expects 200,000 units/year to come online in October of 2007. Combined with the output of Toyota's Kentucky plant, this gives it a North American production capacity somewhere north of 500,000 units/year. The automaker has already stated that it expects to sell 450,000 Camrys here next year; just how many are they thinking of pushing in '08 and beyond?
[Source: Marketwatch]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Car chops and Discussion 8:44AM (9/14/2006)
seems like the smart thing to do.
but gas prices are dying down truck sales might pick up.. who knows :P
http://www.carchops.com
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Anonymous Insights 8:45AM (9/14/2006)
WTF is up with bras (yesterday) and shoes (today) in the corner of autoblog!!! Get this shit off my screen and let me read about cars and not be harrassed repeatedly by womans attire. Frig!!!
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Bonita 8:47AM (9/14/2006)
450,000 Camrys per year?
Just imagine how many Toyota would sell if the front end weren't so FUGLY!!
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Nick 9:08AM (9/14/2006)
The only thing worse than the front end of this Camry is the rear end.
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doublesnap 9:21AM (9/14/2006)
Nearly half a million Camry's a year? No wonder every other car I see on the road is a Camry!
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AR 9:24AM (9/14/2006)
Gee, I wonder how many thousands of customers decided to purchase a Camry because of its looks? You want ugly Bonita? Go look in a mirror. Or go look at yo mama.
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Tony 9:46AM (9/14/2006)
According to the latest feedback,it is the first time ever that Toyota has brought out a decent asthetically looking vehicle in the Camry.In fact,this is another reason for the boost in Camry Sales.
As such,I just don't agree with comments of others re the new looks of the Camry. It is bold,sleek & beautiful!!
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DC_1 9:56AM (9/14/2006)
I agree also. The new Camry looks Fabulous!!
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Ted Schafer 10:02AM (9/14/2006)
The new Tundra does not stand a chance against the Silverado.
As for building more Camry's - Toyota is really putting its eggs in one basket!
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Dave 10:56AM (9/14/2006)
Putting a good egg in one basket is better than putting 14 rotten eggs in 14 baskets. Or something like that.
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Richard Warren 11:38AM (9/14/2006)
#2 Oh, get over it, it sits in the corner, don't click on it, harmless.
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aki 11:37AM (9/14/2006)
The Camry will have one good year, and then the competition will spring their "Camry Killers", have you ever heard a Camry squeal. The Camry at best is presentable in an old fashioned dowdy way, but the design was old when it was introduced to the market. This design will suffer a slow death with lots of paint and powder and lip rouge, however it won't solve the problems. The "Camry Killers" will carve this semi-beautiful over-weight, over-rated, re-call plagued porker like a Sunday roast .......
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CH 12:07PM (9/14/2006)
Last year, the Camry sold 432,000 units. Despite a all-new design, Camry sales are up only 1% YTD August 2006. I suspect Toyota was expecting much more.
Accord sales are down 3% for the year and 28% in August. The competition in this segment has really heated up, or maybe people are buying Corollas (up 16%) and Civics (up 11%). It interesting that the old Corolla has had a bigger boost in sales that the brand new Civic.
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bartman 12:37PM (9/14/2006)
Wow, I didn't realize there were that many blind drivers in the U.S. with no pulse for excitement either. Oh well... guess I'll have to continue driving my Acura Integra...
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AZMike 12:45PM (9/14/2006)
it's amazing how many of the domestic-haters don't see a pattern here.
could it have been more than a few days ago that we were hearing of GM's downfall by the "experts"?
let's see what the reasons were; bland styling, lots of recalls (bad quality!!), "whoring" to fleets, just to get the numbers up, and selling gas guzzlers (trucks), that the public "didn't want", and not having the vision to see all of this.
just so we're all on the same page; was the GM you were talking about, or Toyota?
Mike
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bobjava 1:08PM (9/14/2006)
I hate to nitpick, but I have to. You (Eric) imply a cause by saying “To blame is …” but then offer a correlation (housing starts) as evidence. Correlation is not cause (plus you didn’t cite anything). As a non-mainstream news and info site, I think you should strive to avoid the misleading habits of mainstream media.
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sp 1:34PM (9/14/2006)
Story is not true and Toyota has published PR yesterday that completly denied Tundra production lowering, and Camry Indiana plant production raising.
I wonder how did you miss this, since every newspaper that published original "story" also corrected themselves later on.
And this was yesterday... Google anyone?
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Richard Warren 1:40PM (9/14/2006)
Yep Mike you're right. The other thing on the "fleet whoring" is this, SOMEONE is going to take that business, because the fact is the fleet business requires a certain amount of product. What many forget is that building another say million cars gives an economy of scale. Why give it away to Toyota, Nissan, the Koreans, whoever?
I'd love for someone to prove without a shadow of a doubt that fleet sales actually diminish the value of your personal purchase.. What changed? There was a time when with just the Big Three that all did fleet and it didn't make a damn bit of difference. So when Toyota gets aggressive and sells fleet (they will if they see a market)do you really think that will drop the value of your blandmobile?
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Andy 3:39PM (9/14/2006)
Car & Driver listed the new Camry as one of the worst restyles. The full-size pickup market is shrinking (thankfully), but Toyota is also having to contend with the new Chevy and GMC offerings. The interior, a weak spot in GM vehicles, is miles ahead of the Toyota.
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far jr 9:42PM (9/15/2006)
13. Last year, the Camry sold 432,000 units. Despite a all-new design, Camry sales are up only 1% YTD August 2006. I suspect Toyota was expecting much more.
Accord sales are down 3% for the year and 28% in August. The competition in this segment has really heated up, or maybe people are buying Corollas (up 16%) and Civics (up 11%).
...Or Cobalts (up 10% for the year)
...Or Impalas (up 23% for the year)
...Or Pontiac G6 (up 44% for the year)
Interesting that GM's competing models (sans the Malibu) are growing at or above the levels of the competition.
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