U.S. Ford F-Series Annually Crushes Toyota Tundra Sales And Nobody Cares
Tim Esterdahl | Jan 29, 2015 | Comments 16
Editor’s note: This post was inspired by a reader email that echoes a commonly held – yet completely uninformed – point of view.
Each year, U.S. Ford F-series sales crush the total sales of the Toyota Tundra and nobody, I repeat NO ONE, at Toyota really cares. Why? How can that be? Gasp, why wouldn’t Toyota want to be the GREATEST truck maker in North America?!? Simple. It doesn’t make any sense and the “Best Selling Truck in America” name isn’t accurate. Here’s why.
This Ford F-650’s sales numbers compete against the half-ton Toyota Tundra’s sales numbers.
First, let’s discuss our hate emailer. Apparently, the writer was all bent out of shape on how I “bashed” Ford in the Edmunds.com Sledge Hammer post a few days before. I found this interesting since I specifically called out how well Ford designed the truck for repairs and how Edmunds.com specifically targeted a section that wasn’t easy to address. Also, he suggested I should not share that story with Ford (I already had) nor should I talk with Ford about it (I’m having dinner with Ford in a few weeks via their invite).
He also wanted to know how Tundra sales were doing against Ford F-150. His implication was that the Ford F-150 crushes the Toyota Tundra annually and is thus a more superior product. He then wanted to know if I thought Toyota would ever catch the Ford F-150 in total sales.
Let’s break this down shall we.
About Me
I think before we begin, I need to clear up some assumptions out there about my work. I see comments made on various websites and forums that are simply not accurate. First and foremost, I am an automotive journalist who covers the entire auto industry. You can find my work on:
- Pickuptrucks.com
- eBay Motors Blog
- Carfax.com
- GMAuthority.com
- Motrolix.com
- Tundraheadquarters.com
- Tacomahq.com
- Extremeterrain.com
- CarNewsCafe.com
- AutoFoundry.com
and a slew of smaller parts sites like Blue Springs Ford Parts and Olathe Toyota Parts Blog.
Second, I am friends with Ford’s Mike Levine, Chevy’s Tom Wilkinson and Ram’s Nick Cappa. These guys do great work and have amazing products. For the record, I specifically appreciate Mr. Levine’s help. He is a stand up guy. Also, and equally important, are Tom Wilkinson and Nick Cappa. The work they do isn’t easy and I appreciate what they do.
Third, I am the editor of Tundraheadquarters.com and Tacomahq.com. This means I write the stories and manage the comments. Also, I currently lease a 2013 Toyota Tundra. I think it is a great truck, but I also think the new 2015 Ford F-150 is a great truck as well as the 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel and the 2014 Chevy Silverado 1500 along with the 2014 Nissan Frontier. Throughout the year, I get the opportunity to drive many of them and it is an amazing opportunity.
At the end of the day, I am a writer with a degree in Journalism and an interest in full-size trucks. Toyota fan boy who HATES everyone else? Hardly.
Ford F-150 Best Selling Truck Fallacy
I was recently on a podcast where another journalist tried to make the point that the best selling vehicle in the U.S. is the F-150. Sorry, that is inaccurate. The best selling vehicle (single vehicle) is the Toyota Camry. How can this be? Ford’s marketing commercials proclaim it all the time! Look again.
For example, watch this Ford advertisement:
Notice something? They grouped the F-150 with the Super Duty class which includes F-250, F-350, F-450, F-550, F-650, F-750 and on. Look at the title of the video closer. It says “Ford F-series Commercial Best Selling Truck for 33 Years.” Commercial. Check out this page for the whole list of Ford commercial products. It is pretty shocking.
Now check out this video for the new F-150:
https://youtu.be/OT47lsnvQX0
Notice anything? Yep, Ford doesn’t say anything about it being the best selling truck anywhere in this advertising.
Let’s be clear. I am NOT bashing Ford here. If I was at Ford, I would group the numbers the same way. It is marketing 101 and these statistics are in my favor, so I would use them.
Toyota Will Never Compete With U.S. Ford F-Series Sales
Gasp! How can this be? Toyota isn’t dumb. They know investing in a full-line of commercial products returns little profit and developing, building and investing in a small market dominated by Ford doesn’t make sense. Instead, they focus on building the best CONSUMER truck they can with their resources.
Look at it this way.
- Toyota is the world’s largest automaker. Globally, they sold 9.98M vehicles in 2013 versus 6.3M for Ford. (2014 results for Ford should be released this morning).
- The North American truck market is just a tiny sliver of global sales
- Globally, Toyota is the front runner for trucks with the Hilux
Lastly, my friend at Pickuptrucks.com, Mark Williams, did a great analysis of the half-ton market by itself. The data shows Toyota is around 300k behind Ford. Now, how much is that commercial and how much is that consumers? It’s hard to know for sure, as you have to study registration data to know, and that data is hard to come by (and typically expensive). However, Ford’s fleet mix is historically around 40% on trucks. Therefore, if Ford is selling 400k half-ton trucks a year, about 250k of them are for consumers and the rest go to commercial users. Toyota doesn’t do fleet Tundra sales (at least not in any significant way), so Ford’s really only beating Toyota by 150k trucks a year (maybe less if the fleet mix is higher).
The question then is, can they catch Ford F-150 sales? Sure. Except it would cost them in the neighborhood of $2B dollars. If you didn’t know, the solo Toyota factory is at capacity. Toyota would need to invest in building a second factory and spending resources to offer more options like longer beds, diesel engines and other accessories (yes LJC, a locking differential). However, I’m not sure this is a wise move. From a business standpoint, why invest the $2B to compete in a segment only found in the U.S.? Do I think they need to do something to alleviate their production problem? Yes. And they are with the Baja factory going to a third shift. We would assume the San Antonio plant is also considering the same thing.
At the end of the day, fan boys seem to think all I/we automotive journalists do is walk around shows and sneer at the people we don’t like. That is hardly the case. I respect all of my peers, the work they do and all the different truck makers. I enjoy spending time with each and every one of them and their different products and views on the market.
Let me end by saying I recently saw a photo with Ford, Chevy and Ram reps taking a group selfie at an awards dinner. This photo illustrates a simple fact. We all get along and we are all enthusiasts of the full-size truck market – period.
Filed Under: TundraHeadquarters.com
I completely agree that the numbers are skewed. It should be apples to apples (F150 vs Silverado 1500 vs Tundra vs Ram 1500, etc). It doesn’t make sense to add in the heavy duty pickups and medium duty trucks to the mix. I also agree that Toyota couldn’t care less about it. They made it clear from the very beginning of the Tundra that they weren’t out to unseat Ford from their crown as best selling truck. They simply wanted to offer Toyota owners who needed/wanted a full-size pickup.
Good article, Tim!
Thanks!
-Tim
Yeah Tim!!!
“yes LJC, a locking differential”
Thanks Tim, but I’m moving on, I’ll be adding a ARB Locker.
I’d prefer to spend my money on a Toyota solution, but ARB does make a great product. I wish Toyota would hook up with ARB–that would be a great relationship, especially for the TRD Pro series.
As for most sales implies Best. I agree, that is a short sighted and ignorant.
McDonalds sells the most burgers in the world, but their burger is not the best. Many will agree with that.
Ford sells more Explorers than Toyota sells Land Cruisers. The Explorer or Lincoln derivative is not even close in all respects to a Land Cruiser. Many will agree with this too.
I almost went the EB F150 route, but after analyzing the Tundra Deconstructed videos, I decided on the Tundra.
One final note: Just about every Tundra owner once owned a Dodge, Ford or GM. It would be good to hear why these former “domestic” owners moved to a Tundra.
Reliability!
LJC,
Good insight and comments as always.
Glad to hear you are going with an ARB locker. I hear good things about them. Let us know how it works out for you. I’ll be curious to hear about how it works and how often you need to use it.
-Tim
Wow, over a piece a machine.
It has taken me a few months to get to this point, but I will no longer be visiting this website. I come here for Tundra news and info, but most of the time its Ford related nonsense like this. Who cares that the Tundra doesn’t meet sales expectations? Who cares that Ford likes to embellish their advertising claims? Articles like this only make Tundra owners out to be sore losers that our trucks don’t sell the most. We should be talking up our trucks, not trying to bash others instead. I applaud Ford for having the ambition to bring new, innovative drive trains and materials into the mix. We certainly can’t say the same about Toyota with our 8 year old drive trains with nothing but a so called refresh that brought nothing new to the table. If I wanted to read about Ford trucks I would go to other websites, not this one.
10PlatCrew,
Sorry to see you go!!! I think you might have missed the point on this post. It was simply to clarify to others why Toyota isn’t chasing Ford and doesn’t care about hitting their sales target. Nor was I bashing Ford. Again, just responding to an email.
The other comment on covering only Tundra news is also interesting. Frankly, we wrestle with this quite often. Yet, how can you talk about the whys/hows/what fors without discussing the entire segment. Toyota certainly pays attention to the competition and responds to their mis-steps (see:reason why Tacoma will be offered in manual configurations). We think owners and prospective buyers want to pay attention as well. In fact, we know they want to looking at our traffic numbers. Our traffic on competitors stories continues to rise as people want the news and they want to know what is going on. Looking at the media realm, this site has become one of the few places where you can find the important news and find someone calling out automakers on it. Lastly, we don’t just call out competitor models. I have personally and will continue to call out Toyota when they make mis-steps as well.
Again, sorry to see you go.
-Tim
Toyota doesn’t have to compete with ‘bulk sales’ when it comes to there trucks. They put out a very high quality product in there Tundras and Tacomas I work construction and we park in a huge parking lot nothing but Silverados and F150s all over the place. Myself and a few others have Tundras, I get compliments all the time on my truck. All these trucks are very pleasing to the eye but mechanically I can assure you that the Tundra blows them away in quality especially the F150 and it is proven in the resale value, remember when everybody and there brother owned the same truck resale values diminish.
Tim
Your continued unbiased reporting is the one primary source I turn to…..to obtain facts about trucks.
Without your presence the automotive press is a vast wasteland of marketing hype and essentially useless data; particularly truck comparisons.
Ok, so you are going to have dinner with Ford. Here is the deal: They owe me $5,500 for a failed Super Duty only two years old and 25,000 miles. And an additional $5,000 on a one year old F150 failed EcoBoost with just 10,000 miles. Can you get them to write me a check to cover my losses? Seriously, I and thousands of others have purchased Ford trucks that the company does not stand behind because of the worthless warranty. Does this explain why their growth rates continue to fall, when all other truck makers are increasing?
Randy
Randy,
Ah… shucks. Thanks for the kind words! I do feel like, at times, I provide value that isn’t found online. Not sure if this is always a good thing or a bad thing! Definitely gets me in trouble from time to time, but I won’t stop asking questions, being critical and making mistakes. In the end, mistakes are a good thing and I learn from each one of them.
That stinks about your Ford woes. It is also surprising to me that you got 2 different trucks that had issues. One lemon every once in a while is plausible, but 2 should not happen.
The growth rate is going to be really interesting this year. Can they rebound and grow? Is Ram poised to overtake Chevy? Will Nissan’s new Titan steal sales from Toyota? And what about midsize trucks? What is going to happen there? Hmm… This gives me a post idea!
-Tim
“Toyota Will Never Compete With U.S. Ford F-Series Sales”
I remember back in the 70s when people laughed at the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla.
If the US Congress would stop interfering with the free market by subsidizing poorly run companies, Toyota could already be well on it’s way to becoming the number 1 light truck seller.
For the time being the work never might work but never imply infinity and that’s a short sighted view. Look out 25 years, it is not beyond the possibility that Toyota could take over. Ford has put everything on the line. If they new F150 turns out to be disaster major changes could happen in just 5 years.
Never is a very long time.
By they way those at Ram are not doing a great job. The front drive components of the 4WD 3/4 ton RAM are still a total mess after many years. Why don’t the get it right. How do I know it’s bad, because I have touched the thing apart and replace the stock junk with aftermarket parts.
Todays trucks are about fluff when they should be about tough.
Larry,
Agreed that never is a long time. Just venting my frustration!
Sorry to hear about your Ram woes. I know you really took your time in finding one and learning about any maintenance issues. Hopefully, your repair will fix it for a long while.
-Tim
Sorry Tim but kinda wrong. If Ford groups the HD+ trucks with the F-150 for an advertisement that is one thing, but Ford isn’t the one who keeps track of the actual best selling vehicle charts that are published in automotive magazines, and annual reports.
When you see, a list that says best selling vehicles for whatever month or year (say from cars.com), it may say “Ford F-Series”, but it is only referring to the F-150. Similarly, when it lists “Chevrolet Silverado”, and “Ram Pickup” it is only the half-ton version of said pickup.
-dodgeguy97
Dodgeguy,
We all get the same sales numbers since they come from media sites and the company’s themselves. The F-series numbers includes every Ford truck. I know, I’ve asked Ford directly on it.
Same with Silverado and Ram. They group them together.
-Tim