Toyota To Boost Sales By Peddling To Rental Car Fleets

We’re beginning to pummel a dying horse here but, as you already know, the North American automotive market is shrinking right now. Toyota wants to mitigate this by funneling sales into rental fleets. While this tactic has become unpopular with automakers like General Motors, others have bolstered fleet sales to cope with the lackluster demand. Hyundai, for example, has relied heavily on rental companies to boost its total volume, but the move has placed dealerships and the corporate office at odds with each other.

Toyota’s U.S. deliveries fell 3.6 percent through June of this year, which is 1.5 percent ahead of the industry’s overall decline. The automaker wants to fill the gap by ramping up volume to rental companies before the end of 2017. Like Hyundai, Toyota’s best sellers are passenger cars — which have taken the brunt of consumer apathy of late — but knows it can still unload them on Enterprise, Avis, and Hertz.

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jeffgall - 7/7/2017 8:51:57 AM

+2 Boost

Was forced into a rental Sonata last year and this is where I realized how terrible the ergonomics of Hyndai's are. The left foot dead peddle was awkwardly too far to the left. This is why I love renting from National. They let you pick the car you want and skip the rental counter BS.

vdiv - 7/7/2017 10:59:07 AM

+3 Boost

No, they let you pick the car they have. Other rental agencies do something similar with exchange and upgrade aisles.

Something less convenient, but perhaps a better option if one is rather particular is to rent a car from a dealership. Many now maintain their own fleet of loaners.

jeffgall - 7/7/2017 3:07:57 PM

-1 Boost

For business travel, I rarely get into a car with National I would prefer not to drive. Selection is usually good and most often get a better car than the tier I reserved.

cidflekken - 7/7/2017 3:47:22 PM

+6 Boost

But I thought the Camry was going to be the industry's saving grace for the mid-size sedan? What happened to that? LOL

I'm glad Honda doesn't do fleet in large quantities and I certainly hope they don't try to compete there in the future.

TomM - 7/7/2017 7:03:26 PM

+3 Boost

Selling to Rental car companies is really not profitable for manufactures - in a lot of cases - they sell the cars on a specific price buy back - and then have to sell the cars themselves at auction - no profit on original sale and they lose if the value goes down too much too. BUT - it does keep factories running and they do count as sales in the sales contest. IT does tend to reduce residual values of the cars involved - costing retail customers in the end too. (IF the rental company keeps some of the cars - they try to sell them at retail on their own lots if they are in good shape - otherwise they auction them too)

Still - someone has to sell the cars to rental companies. ANd lots of people need rental cars. However - most rentals are appliance cars for getting here to there - with few options and often an engine that is smaller than the one you get on a base car too.

MrEE - 7/8/2017 1:24:09 AM

+2 Boost

This is common to keep production up for out going models.