Congratulations, car buyers. Your predictable, slavish patterns have made Toyota the number-one selling automaker on the planet for the last three years. In 2014, the world ate up 10.23 million new Toyota, Lexus, and Scion models, more than Volkswagen (10.14 million) or General Motors (9.92 million).
In the U.S., Toyota the brand at 2.06 million finished second behind Ford’s 2.39 million and ahead of Chevrolet’s 2.03 million. When counting retail-only sales and not fleets, however, Toyota claims to be the country’s number-one nameplate. Ever the conservative player, Toyota says it only plans to hit 10.15 million cars worldwide in 2015. But since anything over 10 million is rare air in this industry, Toyota isn’t really taking much of a hit.
Camry sales in the U.S. were up five percent, to 428,606. No other non-truck has been able to topple this vanilla sedan for the past 13 years, and with the 2015 refresh, that’s likely to be the case again (hey, you asked for it, you got it). At Lexus, the 17 LF-As that left showrooms in 2014 may have totaled the GDP of some small nations, but it was the RX crossover that led the L-brand, with 107,490 units. A redesign coming this year should keep the RX on top for 2015. Looking at Scion—well, the best we can say is that Toyota’s “youth” brand still exists. Only 58,009 Scions left the lot (about what the Camry does in a month and a half). The more vexing question is why the poseurish tC coupe outsold the company’s only legitimate sports car, the FR-S. That’s a conundrum for late-night talk shows. Or, rather, our comments section.
- Data, Crunched: These Are the Biggest Automotive Sales Surprises of 2014
- What You Need to Know About Ford’s Big, Happy 2014 Sales Figures
- Still Boring? 2015 Toyota Camry XLE Tested
We’d invite the world’s car buyers to branch out and try something new (how about a Mazda?), but Toyota’s rock-solid reliability ratings and iron-clad customer retention are not likely to be upended anytime soon.
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via Agya
