Toyota Took 2022 Global Sales Crown Without Selling More Cars

“Despite the impact of production constraints caused by the spread of Covid-19, increased demand for semiconductors, and other factors, global sales were at the same level year-on-year as a result of solid demand centered around Asia,” the Japanese car giant said.

In 2022, Toyota sold 2.7 million electrified vehicles, around five percent more than the previous year. The vast majority of those — 2.6 million — were hybrid models.

[...]

Mio Kato, an analyst at Lightstream Research who publishes on Smartkarma, told AFP that Toyota was likely to keep its top-selling crown in the near term.

“In terms of the actual volumes, it will still be difficult for Volkswagen or General Motors to surpass Toyota easily because both are under more pressure in China with their internal combustion engine business,” he said.

Electric-only carmakers like China’s BYD will one day pose “a genuine threat” to Toyota, he said, because they have strong battery technology and “more experience and better branding” with EVs.

Nissan and Renault had initially hoped to announce the restructuring as early as November, but snags emerged. One issue was the treatment of intellectual property jointly developed by the companies over the past two decades.

The companies made progress with discussions recently. Earlier this month, Nissan’s independent directors signaled support for a deal, people familiar with the matter said. The Wall Street Journal reported its outlines last week.

The companies said that to reduce its Nissan stake to 15%, Renault would transfer the excess shares into a French trust. Voting rights tied to those shares would be neutralized for most decisions, but dividends and other proceeds will continue to go to Renault until the shares are sold, the companies said. The trustee designated by Renault to sell Nissan shares will do so “if commercially reasonable for Renault,” with no obligation to sell within a specific period, the companies said.

Under French law, Nissan hasn’t been able to vote its longstanding 15% stake in the French company because Renault holds a greater than 40% stake in Nissan. The deal announced Monday means Nissan will now be able to vote its Renault shares, although the companies said the Japanese car maker’s voting rights would be capped at 15%.

“It became clear to us that we needed to provide more differentiation between our current subscription and a lease,” Care by Volvo U.S. former chief Peter Wexler told Automotive News following the revamp. “The most natural way to do that was to introduce more flexible terms.”

The revised California subscription service is similar to Volvo’s program in New York: Customers can choose a vehicle from retailer stock and must secure their own insurance coverage.

Brian Maas, president of the California New Car Dealers Association, said the new Care by Volvo is “significantly different than the earlier iteration, which was found to violate California law by our DMV.”

Volvo retailers are the contact point for subscription consumers and are free to price the vehicles, Maas told Automotive News. Also, Volvo won’t offer a competing lease product.

“Dealers would not be mere ‘delivery agents’ for Volvo, which was a fatal flaw previously,” Maas said.

Availability and affordability of the Ariya were on dealers’ minds at the [2023 National Automotive Dealer Association c] meeting Sunday, with many of the roughly 200 retailers in attendance wanting to know why they aren’t receiving more units.

“Every dealer was saying how many customers they have waiting or wanting to order one,” Nissan Dealer Advisory Board Chairman Tyler Slade told Automotive News.

Nissan declined to disclose U.S. allocations of the Ariya. But a person briefed on the matter said about 6,000 units were allocated for fiscal 2022, which ends March 31, 2023. About 4,500 of those are built.

Nissan will ramp up Ariya production later this year, with U.S. allocations expected to rise to about 30,000 units for fiscal 2023.

Slade, operating partner at Tim Dahle Nissan Southtowne in suburban Salt Lake City, said his store received interest from about 100 potential customers, some of whom have put down a deposit.

One dealer at the meeting said he was “shocked and deflated” at the lack of supply of the halo model.

“Why can’t we produce the Ariya in any acceptable volume?” the dealer said, requesting he not be identified.

“Customers are walking in saying, ‘I’m sold, let me buy one,’” the dealer said. “But we can’t tell them when it’s coming.”

“Would dealers love to hear about more products and everything like that? Absolutely,” Herod said. “But right now the short-term play is we have to stabilize our dealers’ inventory with what we have.”

Mitsubishi Motors North America CEO Mark Chaffin said the message to dealers was focused on the successful progress of rebuilding the brand together. “We’re not stopping here,” he told Automotive News. “We’ve got plans and we’re going to continue that momentum heading into 2023.”

What dealers are most interested about, Chaffin said, is vehicle supply since retailers are selling every vehicle they can get “and they want more.” Barring global disruptions, Mitsubishi is expecting to stabilize supply in the new year.

The automaker is also “keeping an eye on the market,” given expectations of slower economic growth in the U.S. “There are a lot of headwinds as we look at the economy and fear of recession and a market slowdown,” Chaffin said.