Toyota Up 3.3% in January, Lexus Slumps

Toyota posts a 3.3% daily-selling-rate increase in the U.S. in January as volume reached 161,283.

Toyota Div. rose while Lexus slumped on a DSR basis (there were two fewer selling days in January compared with year-ago), with the former closing out the month up 4.1% with 140,350 sales and the latter down 2.0% to 20,933.

For another month, Toyota’s light-truck lineup propelled the brand.

Toyota says the RAV4 again had a monthly record, with the compact CUV’s 21,554 January 2016 sales the best of any January. Some 1,973 of the 21,554 units were the new RAV4 Hybrid, Toyota notes.

Toyota Div.’s entire light-truck lineup also had a best-ever result of 84,841, up 12.6% adjusted.

The Highlander midsize CUV’s 11,258 deliveries was that model’s best January result since 2008, Toyota says.

The redesigned Toyota Tacoma continued to surge, with the compact pickup up 20.8% in January.

Toyota Div. car sales, which include Scion, fell 3.7% on a DSR basis due to losses across the board, save for the Camry and new models the Mirai fuel-cell car and Scion’s iA and iM.

Camry gained 8.7% on year-ago, while the Mirai added 26 units and the iA and iM 1,840 and 1,250, respectively.

Scion’s total sales rose 49.7% thanks to the new small cars offsetting losses with the tC, FR-S and discontinued xB, xD and iQ.

The rare loss for Lexus could be put down to the brand’s 19.6% DSR falloff on the car side.

Every Lexus car recorded declines last month, with the IS, CT and LS posting 30.0%-plus losses.

Lexus’ new RX, relatively new NX and refreshed LX models gave the brand’s light-truck lineup a 15.9% adjusted gain.

The NX compact CUV rose 20.7% while the RX was up 16.7%. The LX had the most dramatic leap, soaring 116.3% but on modest January volume of 585 units.

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