Toyota’s big pickup sales dip on storm, few chips

A global computer chip shortage and last month’s winter storm in Texas threw off sales of Toyota’s San Antonio-built pickups in February — but the auto industry has broadly recovered from the pandemic-driven downturn that began last spring.

Toyota dealers sold 5,819 fullsize Tundra trucks last month, down 28 percent from February 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Through the first two months of the year, Tundra sales were 17 percent lower than a year earlier.

The midsize Tacoma, meanwhile, saw sales of 20,578 trucks last month. That was roughly the same number of sales as a year earlier.

Through January and February, Tacoma sales were almost 5 percent higher than the same time period a year earlier.

“The February storms across the country were the wild card in this month’s sales forecast, especially because of the hard hit Texas took and with it being such a high-volume sales state,” said Michelle Krebs, an executive analyst at Cox Automotive.

Toyota suspended production at its South Side factory for nearly a week amid the historic storm last month. Even so, the deep freeze had only a “minimal” im

pact on production at Toyota’s San Antonio plant, spokesman Victor Vanov said.

And with the worst of the storm lasting about a week, Krebs said there was “enough time through the rest of the month to make up for lost sales.”

The global semiconductor chip shortage, however, likely took a bigger toll on Toyota’s sales last month.

Toyota and other automakers are feeling the crunch of a worldwide shortage of computer chips, which are vital components in many vehicle parts ranging from touch screens to collision detection systems.

Consumer demand fell off when coronavirus-related restrictions were enacted last spring, keeping many drivers off the road and — because of the eonomic downturn — out of the market for new vehicles. In response, manufacturers slowed chip production.

But automakers and other producers of consumer goods saw demand return faster than expected, which has caused a run on available chips.

“February’s Tundra sales were impacted by the ongoing chip shortage affecting the entire auto industry,” Vanov said.

Amid the semiconductor scarcity, Toyota is preserving chips for its best-selling vehicles, including the Tacoma.

“The chips that would be used in the Tundra are going into other vehicles,” Krebs said.

Toyota’s total U.S. sales last month were down nearly 7 percent, outperforming the auto industry as a whole. Cox analysts projected sales among all automakers were down 9.4 percent last month.

While there was a dropoff in sales in February, analysts noted there were two more selling days in February 2020 — which was a leap year — compared with last month.

But through the first two months of the year, Toyota’s sales were down just 3 percent compared with the same time in 2020, which were the last months before the coronavirus pandemic devastated the auto industry.

It was a surprise that sales last month were comparable to pre-pandemic levels, which showed the auto market has largely recovered, Cox analysts said.

But truck and SUV sales have carried Toyota so far this year. Through February, total U.S. sales of Toyota trucks and SUVS were up 4.5 percent this year. By comparison, Toyota’s total U.S. car sales were down 17 percent from a year ago.

“It appears to me that soft car sales had an impact on Toyota overall,” Krebs said. “But then again, we are seeing a continued significant shift away from cars to SUVS.”

Cox Automotive projects total U.S. vehicle sales will reach 15.7 million this year, up from 14.5 million last year.