A pair of industry forecasters think Toyota Motor North America sustained the not “sustainable” and beaten General Motors in U.S. sales for a second consecutive quarter as microchip and other supply shortages wreak havoc on traditional market shares.
Most automakers are expected to announce their September and third-quarter sales on Friday.
Edmunds and TrueCar predict that the industry will report a substantial drop in the quarter as dwindling inventory hindered sales. The two forecasters expect that Toyota once again topped GM in the third quarter as it weathered the supplier storm for at least part of the quarter better than its Detroit competitor.
For September, Edmunds projects the seasonally adjusted, annualized selling rate will be 12.3 million, while TrueCar expects it to be 12.2 million. The SAAR in August was 13.09 million, and in September last year was 16.5 million.
Edmunds’ forecast puts Toyota’s third-quarter sales at 563,089, which would be a slight gain from the same period in 2020, but off 18 percent from its second-quarter volume, while it sees GM dropping to 456,031, a 32 percent drop from a year ago and off 34 percent from the second quarter. Overall, Edmunds believes industry sales declined 13 percent in the third quarter to 3.4 million vehicles, with only Hyundai/Kia (+10 percent), Volkswagen Group (+2.6 percent) and Toyota (+0.8 percent) able to eke out a gain. Edmunds also sees Ford and Stellantis taking double-digit sales hits in the quarter.
Similarly, TrueCar forecasts Toyota’s third-quarter sales are up 2.5 percent at 572,658 to take the industry’s top spot in U.S. sales, with GM sales falling more than 200,000 in the quarter to 441,307. Toyota continues to report its sales monthly, while GM is among those automakers which only report sales quarterly. TrueCar’s projections see industry sales off 15 percent from a year ago to 3.03 million, and down 23 percent from the second quarter.
Toyota topped GM in sales in the U.S. for the first time in second quarter as it relied heavily on its supplier relations to keep factories running amid worsening COVID-19 conditions.
At the time, Bob Carter, head of sales for Toyota Motor North America, said the unprecedented feat was not “sustainable” for the company over the long term. In August, Toyota began announcing large cuts to its global production as the pandemic shut down supplier factories in Asia, and subsequently continued those cuts further.
“New vehicle sales in the third quarter have been a direct reflection of the worsening chipset and inventory situation. Although consumer demand continues to run high, sales have continued to slide downward each month because there simply aren’t enough of the vehicles that shoppers want,” Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ executive director of insights, said in a written statement.
“The entire U.S. auto industry — including the Asian manufacturers, which were doing a bit better than their domestic counterparts until recently — is in an incredibly volatile position right now and we are seeing inflated retail prices across the board.
“It’s growing extraordinarily hard to predict who will come out on top heading into the rest of the year, as every automaker is at the mercy of its suppliers and challenged logistics around the globe.”
