Toyota Motor Corp. aims to sharply increase its share of the U.S. full-size pickup market after launching a new Tundra next year, but it is targeting only a small rise in sales to fleet customers such as construction firms.
"Our initial fleet sales goals are actually quite modest, in the range of approximately 5,000 to 6,000 units for 2007," Brian Smith, manager of Toyota Motor Sales USA's truck operations, said Monday at the unveiling of two versions of the truck: the 2007 Regular Cab Tundra and the Double Cab version with a longer, eight-foot truck bed. Toyota showed the Double Cab with standard six-and-a-half-foot bed in Chicago earlier this year.
Current Tundra's fleet sales are just under 5,000 a year.
With the new Tundra coming out in February, Toyota will offer a full-size pickup with a competitive range of towing and other capabilities for the first time.
"In the past, they produced a good truck but it was undersized for what a lot of people wanted from a full-size truck," said analyst Jim Hall at AutoPacific.
Toyota says the new Tundra, which it will build at two U.S. plants, has more North American input than any other Toyota vehicle. The Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor oversaw its development, and it was designed at Toyota's U.S. studios.
Toyota expects to sell about 200,000 Tundras next year, or about 10 percent of the pickup segment, and it aims eventually to double its current 7 percent share. Through August, Toyota has sold 79,000 Tundras.
It will offer several body styles and three different engines, but Toyota has not announced plans to build Tundra trucks above the half-ton category.
Fleet customers account for 18 percent of U.S. pickup sales, but a smaller proportion of sales of half-ton pickups.
As in the passenger car market, sales of trucks to fleets tend to be less lucrative than retail sales through dealers, said Joe Phillippi, president of consulting group AutoTrends in Short Hills, N.J.
But among retail pickup buyers, a substantial number purchase a truck for personal and business use -- a group that some Toyota executives term "fleet-tail."
Toyota will bring the trucks it displayed Monday to the National Truck Equipment Association's annual product conference in Dearborn this week to allow so-called "up-fitters," such as makers of ladder racks, to measure dimensions.
"For the first time ever, our engineers will work with equipment manufacturers during the pre-launch of the two trucks," Smith said. "To permit them time to develop a wide variety of compatible work equipment, and to have those products to market by the time the new Tundra launches this coming February."
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