As a follow-up to my recent article about how the death of cars has been greatly exaggerated, one sedan is still very much alive and kicking: The iconic Toyota Camry. Toyota recently published Q3 2024 results in the United States where the Camry continues to climb the sales charts. The no-nonsense family hauler was up 1.7% to 22,934 cars. Even more impressive is the Camry’s performance through September, rising by 4.4% to 227,576 vehicles.
That brings me to a short math exercise. There were 273 days between January 1 and September 30. That means Toyota sold on average 833.6 Camrys per day. In reality, the number is even higher if we're counting only business days. Apart from national holidays when nearly everyone is off, it's worth noting that several states prohibit car dealerships from opening on Sundays under blue laws.
The Corolla is having a good year as well. Through September, shipments went up by 6.9% to 177,092 cars. That works out to 648.6 cars sold each day. Unlike its bigger brother offered exclusively in sedan guise, the Corolla can also be had as a hatchback, complete with a GR performance flavor. In other parts of the world, Toyota also has a more practical wagon.
But yes, SUVs reign supreme. The numbers are looking far better for the RAV4, essentially Toyota's license to print money. In the first nine months of the year, the "Recreational Active Vehicle with 4-wheel drive" accumulated sales of 350,331 units. It's a substantial increase of 15.7% over the January-September 2023 interval. Repeating the math exercise, Toyota sold 1,283 RAV4s each day since the start of the year.
These are just three of the company's heavy hitters, which by the way are sold all over the world. It's no wonder that in 2023, Toyota retained its crown for the biggest automaker for the fourth consecutive year. It did so by selling 9,483,137 vehicles. Its luxury division Lexus had remarkable growth in 2023 by delivering 824,258 cars or a whopping 132% more than the year before.
