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Toyota Looks To Export Tundra, Sequoia; Says Big Girls Can’t Get No Love
Toyota Tundra Gets Dumped By North American Buyers
In response to large-vehicle sales reaching record lows in North America, Toyota announced tentative plans to begin exporting the Tundra pick-up truck and Sequoia SUV. Explaining Toyota’s plan [still in the preliminary stages of implementation], Steve St. Angelo, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky, said that the large vehicle market overseas isn’t nearly as dismal, there could be a sizable niche for exported pick-ups and SUVs [see: military junta fleet sales].
According to Toyota reports, sales of the Toyota Tundra were down this past month 15.2% while the Toyota Sequoia enjoyed a momentary break from the trend with a 32.8% increase this month. After recording high inventories of both vehicles, however, on Friday, August 8th, Toyota began idling plants responsible for production while they attempt to navigate through the rocky economy. Production is scheduled to resume in mid-November, but the near future for the Tundra and the Sequoia on American soil is looking grim.
[Source: Automotive News]
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Toyota’s bringing the newest, most huge Tundra to the American market, in early 2007, will likely stand as the biggest mistake in judgement the company has ever made.
Of course, they were following suit regarding Nissan’s debut of the appropriately named Titan and Armada; in the case of the latter, it is nice to know that someone at Nissan has a sense of history. But just as the original Armada was defeated by the British fleet, so too the latest Armada is being defeated by the price of petroleum.
At this writing, the national average for gasoline is now averaging $3.81 a gallon for regular gas; but it won’t last. It’s time for Toyota to go back to the formula it established for the Tacoma, back in 1995, or the vintage trucks that Nissan made, way back in the Sixties. People still need to carry loads, but they’re going to have to make due with something other than leviathons such as the Tundra. Welcome to the world, America.
Words by Terry Parkhurst on August 11, 2008 at 4:14 pm | #