Toyota Sales Socked with 75-Percent Drop, Edmunds.com Forecasts
January 29, 2010
Toyota-brand sales will drop 75 percent during the sales suspension of its eight best-selling 
models and some potential Lexus and Scion sales will be collateral damage.
"As long as sales of recalled Toyota models are suspended, Toyota will suffer about a 75 percent hit in sales," said Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Ray Zhou, PhD.
Even though no Lexus of Scion models are covered under the sticky gas pedal recall and sales suspension, their sales may be down as well.
"During this period, Scion may be down about 20 percent and Lexus may be down about 10 percent because of damage to the Toyota corporate brand," added Zhou.
Edmunds.com has seen a fall-off of customers intending to purchase a Toyota model, based on the shopping behavior of visitors to its Web site. Meantime, Toyota's competitors are benefiting.
"In the past two weeks, purchase intent for Toyota has fallen from 13.9 percent of the market to 9.7 percent," said Edmunds.com Senior Analyst David Tompkins, PhD. "In the same period, Chevrolet, Ford, Honda and Mazda have experienced the largest gains."
General Motors, Ford and now Hyundai have launched incentive and marketing campaigns aimed at nabbing would-be Toyota buyers. Toyota is fighting back with incentives on the models that aren't affected by the recall and sales suspension.
"We anticipate that Toyota will continue to experience decline for some time until this issue is resolved," said Tompkins.
The Toyota models covered by the latest recall and sales suspension are: Toyota Avalon (2005-2010); Toyota Corolla (2009-2010); Toyota Matrix (2009-2010); some Toyota Camry models (2007-2010); Toyota RAV4 (2009-2010); Toyota Highlander (2010); Toyota Tundra 2007-2010); and Toyota Sequoia (2008-2010).
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 1:55 PM under Analysis , Featured , Ford , GM , Toyota | Comments (3) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
It is all lies again. First blame floor mats, then pedal manufacturer. When the real reason is most likely SW bug, bad design or electronic failure. Why they do not stop production of Lexus models? Wasn't it Lexus that caused all this brouhaha? Wasn't it Lexus accelerated FULL pedal to metal? It is not possible with floor mat or sticky gas pedal. DO you really feel safe buying Toyota, Lexus or Scion when you know that Toyota lied not only once, but twice to cover itself? Even if Toyota replaces all CTS made pedals - the problem remains unsolved because they are not able to figure out real reason of unintended acceleration. My advice - just drop Toyota/Lexus/Scion from your shopping list until couple of years passes and problem does not arise again.
Posted by: savetheland | January 30, 2010 at 2:26 PM
I don't think the gas pedal is the real problem. I guess time will tell....
Posted by: mhan | January 31, 2010 at 1:33 PM
This data is interesting because Toyota fans have been claiming GM and Ford wouldnt benefit from this fiasco because Toyota owners arent interested in American cars.
Posted by: 1487 | February 01, 2010 at 7:58 AM