All Entries Tagged With: "disappointing sales"

The Tundra’s “Sales Failure” Story Is A Myth

I’ve noticed a fair amount of commentary lately about the Tundra’s status as a “sales failure,” (CNN ran an article a few days ago that I won’t link to here because it’s so stupid) and it’s shocking to me that so many otherwise smart people in the auto news industry can make such a silly argument. The Tundra’s sales definitely aren’t exemplary, but they certainly aren’t a “failure” when you consider the history of events between the Tundra’s debut in 2007 and today.

Lazy analysis of truck sales figures leads some people to conclude that the Tundra has been a failure, but that analysis overlooks a few facts.

The worst part is, this silly story about the Tundra’s “sales failure” isn’t going away anytime soon. The Tundra plant was only running at 30% capacity in April and May, it’s only been running at 50% capacity for June, and it’s not expected to get back to 100% until August/September. That means that 2011 probably isn’t going to be a good year in terms of total Tundra sales.

Still, looking exclusively at sales figures to make a determination about the success of the Tundra is like reading a box score instead of watching the game: you get a sense of what happened, but you still miss a lot.