We may be all stuck with SUVs and Crossovers.

My wife has a hard time parking a crossover. She rented one recently for a vacation trip.
We are older and drive older vehicles. She is so use to a sedan.


Toyota is taking a "hard look" at its U.S. lineup with an eye toward eliminating smaller cars that aren't performing well as buyers shift toward utility vehicles, the company's head of North American operations said Tuesday.

Toyota could discontinue the subcompact Yaris and sell fewer variants of its Prius hybrid. Toyota is no longer selling the Prius V and could phase out the Pirus C. The company could also scale back niche products such as sport coupes and convertibles, said Jim Lentz in a Wall Street Journal report.

Smaller cars such as the Yaris have seen limited demand outside of daily rental fleets.
Toyota's competitors have already begun streamlining their car lineups in the U.S. Ford is planning to eliminate virtually all cars, and General Motors will reduce its Chevrolet car lineup to three models. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has eliminated several Chrysler and Dodge cars.

Lentz said it would be a mistake for Toyota to pull completely out of the passenger-car business.


https://www.automotive-fleet.c...ebid=3671F9146356B0M

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ontmark,

Can't possibly be. We heard in the Ford thread that Toyota sells all the cars they can produce and Ford was mistaken for dropping them.

Yep that has to be fake news, Toyota knows what people want, they build the best stuff because they are not Ford. Several here have told us it's just Ford not being able to make a decent car vs changing market forces.

Probably written by Jim Acosta...

Unless I missed something, Toyota has made no final decisions or announced anything definitive on this issue so far. I think we'd be better off allowing Toyota the time to release a definitive position on what will stay and what will go in their vehicle lineup before we try and dig too deeply into this topic.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Probably written by Jim Acosta...

I have it on good authority that Jim Acosta can't write! Come on now.

it would be great if they could eliminate the Prius

It can't be, right on cue the Ford fans are completely mischaracterizing every single thing that was said in the previous Ford thread, I'm completely surprised.

Ford: We will stop producing ALL sedans NOW since our sedans can't compete in the market.

Toyota: We will keep producing our marking leading sedans like the Camry (which has outsold every Ford sedan for the last 20 consecutive years), and we may stop producing a few small cars that are weak on sales sometime in the future.

Yep, exactly the same thing.

The Yaris is probably good as gone. Wouldn't be surprised if the 86 went away, too.

They are all dropping traditional sedans for SUV looking cars. Based on sales, it's what the peeples want. We sell the Equinox ($20-$30k) by the buttload. <That is an official sales marker

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
it would be great if they could eliminate the Prius

Not until after I buy one

We just switched over to a mileage based reembursement from a car allowance because of the new tax regulations

I’m going to need all the advantage I can get

I do agree there are too many models in the lineup

supply / demand and all that

seems like they all make a sub compact + a compact + a mid-size + 'full-size'

could probably all get away with a compact (corolla-size) and a mid-size (camry-size)

-----------------------------------

Typical Toyboys, not paying attention Ford isn't stopping all car production, just on some of the Sedans, the Mustang and Focus are still being produced with a possible 4 door stang, and a 4/5 door Focus still in production...


Anywho... Toyota just confirmed what Fords Management already knows, the days of the sedan as the main selling segment in the auto industry are on the decline....


Doesn't matter anyway none of ya will buy either since they don't have a manual tranny...

Link to article has been added

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
it would be great if they could eliminate the Prius

I don't understand this statement.

quote:

Originally posted by ontmark:
Link to article has been added

The article makes it sound as though Toyota is only culling the herd a small bit, which makes sense for any auto manufacturer.

I've been in the business a long time.

It cycles with the economy. If the OE's outlook is for a robust economy they will shift production to bigger, higher ticket vehicles.
Weak economy they will make sure they have capacity for smaller, economy vehicles.

The average age for a car in the US right now is higher than it's ever been. The demand for new vehicles is surging with the economy. SUV's sell well in this environment.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Typical Toyboys, not paying attention Ford isn't stopping all car production, just on some of the Sedans, the Mustang and Focus are still being produced with a possible 4 door stang, and a 4/5 door Focus still in production...


Anywho... Toyota just confirmed what Fords Management already knows, the days of the sedan as the main selling segment in the auto industry are on the decline....


Doesn't matter anyway none of ya will buy either since they don't have a manual tranny...

What I read was that Ford is discontinuing all car models from the US except the Mustang and Focus Active (which is a crossover/CUV type think based on the Focus).

Can't imagine Toyota nixing their main-line cars (Corolla, Camry, maybe Avalon).
Article also mentions convertibles. I don't recall how long ago the Solara went out of production, but that's the most recent Toyota convertible that I can recall.

The Yaris I can see going away, can't recall that last time I saw one on the road.
Not sure on the 86, I don't see many, and when I do, they're Subarus, not Toyota/Scion.

Oil has gone back to being relatively cheap and easy. Fracking may keep that going for a while. But if oil (and by extension gasoline) gets expensive again, these crossovers, which work out to being biggish cars, will lose popularity quickly.

I guess I'm in the minority here.

I hate SUV's

I hate sitting up high and feeling like my center of gravity is so high. I hate that most SUV's have TERRIBLE rear visibility.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
it would be great if they could eliminate the Prius

Why?

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Oil has gone back to being relatively cheap and easy. Fracking may keep that going for a while. But if oil (and by extension gasoline) gets expensive again, these crossovers, which work out to being biggish cars, will lose popularity quickly.

Most of these so called SUV's will be front drive with small turbo four bangers, gas mileage is in the 30's on the highway