Toyota has been dealing with its own major distraction in the form of its recall of 3.8 million vehicles for a gas-pedal problem. But the company managed to report November sales of 133,700 vehicles, an increase of nearly 3 percent on an unadjusted basis.
“Toyota came in pretty strong, and higher than we may have thought a few weeks ago,” said Edmunds.com’s Caldwell.
For Toyota, a huge part of its performance was big lease incentives, she said. “And some of the incentives on their leases were very high, too. The programs resonated well.”
The company’s lease penetration of 21 percent was boosted by record-high levels of leasing of some of its highest-volume models, including Camry (39 percent leased, the highest ever), Corolla (29 percent, also a record high), and RAV4 (33 percent, highest ever). In turn, Camry and Camry Hybrid sales climbed an adjusted 18 percent over November 2008; Corolla sales rose more than 9 percent, and RAV4 sales were up a whopping 35 percent over the same period last year.
Another significant accomplishment for Toyota during the month was beefing up its once-depleted inventories. Continuing to crank up production of many of its U.S. models, Toyota closed November with 50,000 more units in dealer inventories than at the end of October and “very close” to its goal of 200,000 vehicles in stock across the retail network by the end of the year, Carter said.
“This means our dealerships have an excellent selection of everything,” he said, “positioning us very well to close out 2009.”
Even Prius, the hybrid that has been in extremely short supply for several months mainly due to production issues, now is in much more ample supply. It was up to a 21-day supply in November after being stuck in low-teens numbers for some time. “We’re pleased to get out of that situation while maintaining and actually accelerating sales,” Carter said.
Lexus also seems to have resumed its stride and is demonstrating that some life is returning to the luxury segment. Its sales were up 24 percent compared with November 2008, on an adjusted basis, and up 16 percent compared with last month.
“Our market share of 2.5 percent of the entire industry was the highest for November in our 20-year history,” said Mark Templin, group vice president, and general manager of the Lexus division.
The sales leader for Lexus was its new RX utility vehicle, which posted November sales of nearly 8,000 units, up an adjusted 47 percent compared with the version sold a year ago.
However, Toyota hasn’t been able to escape the shadow cast by its huge recall of vehicles in which the accelerator pedals could be jammed by the floor mat, potentially causing unintended acceleration. The company is having dealers shorten the length of the pedals beginning in January while the company develops and produces replacement pedals by April.
Carter said that Toyota is looking for signs that the recall and attendant publicity has affected sales but hasn’t seen any yet. Neither would Toyota executives reveal the cost of the recall to the company.
“We hope [customers] realize when we’re finished that we stand behind our product, and their safety is paramount in our minds,” said Irv Miller, Toyota’s chief spokesman.