An Escalating Uphill Battle for Big Trucks, Especially Those from Japanese Makers
August 27, 2008
Full-size pickup trucks from Japan's largest
manufacturers - Toyota and Nissan -set new records in July for incentives as well as the time it takes to sell them, according to analysis by Edmunds.com.
Nissan paid its highest amount ever for incentives in July. The Total Cost of Incentives (TCI) on the Nissan Titan hit a record $5,286 for every one sold. Toyota also set a new record for incentives on the Tundra, surpassing the $5,000 mark for the first time, at $5,213 TCI.
The industry average for TCI on all full-size pickup trucks set a new record of $5,417. (TCI is Edmunds.com's proprietary calculation for all incentives on a volume-weighted basis.)
Despite the higher incentives, it took longer than ever to sell both the Nissan and Toyota trucks. The Titan took a whopping 152 days to sell, from the time it arrived at a dealership until it was purchased. That was a record for the Truck. The Tundra's days-to-sell rate was lower at 70 days but still a record high for the truck. The industry average for number of days it took to sell any full-size truck set a new record at 108 days.
Both Nissan and Toyota have shifted gears in their plans for full-size trucks in the future.
Nissan will let Chrysler build a version of its Dodge Ram to replace its Titan in 2010. Toyota has consolidated Tundra production at its San Antonio, Texas, plant and has scheduled several weeks of downtime to slash inventories to meet the slower demand.
Photos by manufacturers
Left - Nissan Titan
Right - Toyota Tundra
Jessica Caldwell, director of pricing and industry analysis, provided the analysis for this report.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 12:20 PM under Analysis , Companies , Toyota | Comments (2) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
As much as I hate to point this out, as I like my domestic trucks to do well, those numbers, especially for the Toyotas, don't look bad considering the fact that the averages are higher. For the averages to be higher, someone else (NOT Toyota, and at least for incentives, NOT Nissan) has to be on the other side of the curve..
Posted by: jerrywimer | August 28, 2008 at 8:35 AM
Jerry - that is true but Toyota and Nissan were very close to the average (within $200) so they are essentially matching the domestics. Completely different with cars - hence why so note worthy.
Also Toyota's truck is brand new, lots of fanfare and from a company that usually succeeds. In this case they bit of more than they could chew and had bad timing.
Posted by: guy1974 | August 28, 2008 at 10:24 AM