Friday, August 23, 2013
Toyota Early arrival will help Camry
Toyota, Honda and other leading automakers usually redesign important vehicles every five years. The faster schedule gives Toyota another edge in its relentless drive to boost sales in the United States.
Not a rush job
This is not a hurry-up job, either. Toyota planned on a 4½-year cycle for the current Camry when engineers started work on the 2007-model redesign in 2002.
"To maintain the edge over our competition, there is an initiative to reduce development times," Jim Press, president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc., said at a press event here. "It plays out as a competitive advantage. Fresh bread is always easier to sell."
The Camry has been the best-selling car in America for four straight years and for eight of the last nine years. Given that the Camry is in the last year of its model cycle, yet with incentives that rarely crossed the $1,000 plateau, that win streak is formidable.
How big a seller is Camry? Toyota estimates that 5 million Camrys are in operation in America. Thats more Camrys buzzing around Americas roads than all the cars Hyundai Motor America still has running since it started business in 1986 - 4.3 million.
With a new Camry Hybrid also available this summer, Toyota expects incremental gains to boost annual Camry sales to about 450,000 units. Toyota sold 431,703 Camrys in 2005 - the most of any car in 20 years in the United States.
About 85 percent of Camry sales are sedans. The remainder are Solara coupes and convertibles.
While some automakers struggle to make money on family sedans, the Camry may be the biggest contributor to Toyotas U.S. bottom line, says Joe Phillippi, analyst with Auto Trends consultancy in Short Hills, N.J.
"Camry is the franchise," Phillippi says. "Standard volume is 75 percent of plant capacity. If Toyota is filling the plant, or running overtime, they make a hell of a lot of money at those volumes. Doing that allows them to subsidize development of niche vehicles like the FJ Cruiser."
The FJ Cruiser is a new Toyota SUV that is due in March.
Toyota says the price of the redesigned Camry will be similar to the price of the current model. The difficulty is that the new base model, the CE, comes with as many standard features as the outgoing mid-range LE trim level.
Some kind of price-up
"Knowing all we put into the car, plus increased raw material costs, well have to see some kind of price-up," says Jim Lentz, Toyota Division general manager. "Wed love to keep the pricing even, but I just dont see it."
The current Camrys base price is $19,025, including destination.
Press says Toyota is changing its idea of what a base model car entails. In the past, base model volume has been "negligible," Press says.
Rather than a stripped model that dealers advertise to lure people into the dealership, the base model will be a value leader. That may mean a higher base price, "but its better to offer that than a car that no one wants," he says.
Even though the Camry will not go on sale until March, Toyota will begin marketing the 2007 model in January.
Lentz predicts the Camry launch "will be the biggest launch Toyota has had in our nearly 50 years of existence."
source:autonews.com
