Spending on boosting US pickup truck and SUV production capacity should help narrow the gap with the US auto industry average for bigger vehicles increasingly popular with American consumers, a top Toyota executive said recently.
Bill Fay, head of the US Toyota brand, told Reuters increased production of Tacoma pickup trucks, RAV4 and Highlander SUVs and the new C-HR crossover should help bring Toyota to a "60% light truck sales mix this year, from about 52% this past year."
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He said the industry average for light trucks and SUVs in recent months had been around 64% of US industry sales which have shifted substantially away from cars thanks to low fuel prices and improved economy for heavier vehicles. Fay told the news agency sales of those vehicles as a share of the US total should continue to rise.
"We'll have a leveling out at some point, but we think it has a ways to go," Fay said.
He said Toyota was not forecasting when it could expect to catch up with the US industry average for SUV and truck sales, adding "but we may not need to catch up to it" because of the popularity of the Camry and Corolla sedans.
"We may always be a brand that's always a little less light truck and a little higher passenger car because of the strength we have in our passenger vehicles," he told Reuters. "And that might be OK."
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