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Auto blog

Toyota Camry incentives and fleet sales cranked to keep sales crown, insiders worried

We've been watching for some time now as Toyota has piled more incentives on the hood of its Camry sedan, and Automotive News reports that the we're not the only ones with raised eyebrows. The current Camry hasn't even been on the market for two years, but the family sedan segment is more hotly contested than it has been in years. It's that high level of competition that has led the automaker to uncharacteristically add more money on the hood in order to assure it maintains its long-held title of America's Best-Selling Car, a mantle it has owned for a dozen years. It's ramping up fleet sales, too.
According to the analysts at TrueCar, Toyota has bumped incentives per unit every month this year, now totaling some $2,750 as of May, a 38-percent hike over this time last year. That's more spiff money than the segment's other best sellers, the Nissan Altima ($2,400), Ford Fusion ($2,300) and Honda Accord ($1,400), all of whom have actually decreased their incentive spend by 20- to 40-percent over the same period.
The ramp up in incentive spending and fleet sales has analysts concerned that Toyota will tarnish the Camry's historically sterling resale value. ALG pegs the 2013 Camry's current 36-month residual value at 54.4 percent, well ahead of the segment average's 50.9 percent (but shy of the Accord's 55.6 percent). However, analysts are concerned that as the current generation ages, their resale values will eventually plummet if incentives continue to increase as Toyota looks to keep the Camry's best-selling car crown going forward.

Aston CEO claims Cygnet cancelled because Toyota is dropping iQ in 2014

While slow sales and a $50,000 price tag may have been contributing factors to the Aston Martin Cygnet being cancelled last month, Aston Martin CEO Ulrich Bez is pointing the finger at Toyota for the demise of this luxurious little city car. In a discussion with Autocar, Bez is quoted as saying that the ultimate reason the Cygnet was cut is because Toyota plans on dropping the iQ (on which the Cygnet is based) in 2014 - a claim denied by the Japanese automaker.
Interestingly, the article also cites another publication reporting that a Toyota importer in the Netherlands heard the same news as Bez, and it has already stopped importing the cars. If the European Toyota iQ is cancelled, that would likely spell the end of the slow-selling Scion iQ in the US, which has sold just 3,365 units through September (a drop of 51 percent year over year).
Regardless of why production of the Cygnet ended, Bez also says that a lack of support from Toyota on the project prevented it from being offered in the US or receiving a supercharged engine, which are two factors that likely would have made the car appealing to more buyers.

Toyota to shock with Supra concept for Detroit Auto Show?

We've written about approximately 187,000 rumors about a return of the Toyota Supra to the land of living cars. There are a couple of good reasons for this: first, Toyota won't stop dropping hints about a new halo sports car. Late this summer, Toyota sales guru Kazuo Ohara called a Supra successor "one of the options we have" - a comment followed by a hint that there would be "better news" on the subject in the future.
The second reason for all the Toyota tales is, of course, that we all have missed the Supra since its departure from the US market in 1998. So, when a member of the Autoblog team is party to a nudge-and-wink-filled conversation about a new Supra concept headed to January's Detroit Auto Show, we tend to listen up.
A 400+ horsepower hybrid sports car would match up pretty well with the upcoming NSX.