High Prices: Unchanging Reality?
An upper-level executive of Toyota North America anticipates that the typical transaction cost of a new car will shortly catapult past $50,000 and remain on an incline, yielding stress to an increasing number of American purchasers.
According to Automotive News, Jack Hollis, Head of Sales for Toyota Motor North America, has informed the media that he believes the USA is presently in the middle of a recession, although it is unlike any other that has been seen before. He went on to explain that this will result in an increase in average transaction prices, which will “continue to grow” beyond the $50,000 mark.
There is no denying that the average American consumer has to pay a large amount for any cutting-edge vehicle. To provide an example, you could get a Toyota GR Corolla Morizo Edition for fifty thousand dollars or the BMW X3 sDrive30i for forty-six thousand two hundred with a nice leftover balance.
Despite the decrease in prices for new cars in January, it could just be a temporary fluctuation. In an exigent report from Kelley Blue Book, they revealed that a noteworthily large proportion of buyers are spending more than one thousand dollars each month on their car payments. The survey stated that 15.7% of those who bought a fresh vehicle in the last three months of 2022 had to surrender more than four digits each month in the form of installments.
The pricing in the automotive market is not only going to be substantially greater according to Hollis, but the request for second-hand automobiles is anticipated to remain solid, nurturing their residual value. This is due to many prospective customers being hindered from purchasing a new car because of the expensive outlay.
“The industry is being hindered by the entirety of the supply chain and its fragility due to the fact that we have yet to return to a state of normalcy around the world,” said the spokesperson. The only thing preventing progress is this lack of consistency, they added. It’s clear that the industry is not yet able to move forward as it should due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Hollis postulated that both Toyota and Lexus should benefit from a hundred thousand more transactions by 2023 than their 2.1 million sales of the prior year; however, he believed a negligible decrease in market share was a reasonable expectation.
“We can observe that this will be a year of two distinct periods – for both Toyota and Lexus. We were aware that the first quarter would be slower for us, and the second quarter will still be a bit slow, although not to the same extent as the initial quarter. The first half of the year will be behind last year’s figures, however the second half will be ahead of last year’s,” he concluded.
In the Golden State of California, Toyota is still ahead on the sales board — though only minimally. For their core products, such as the Camry and RAV4, they have been outdone by Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y. Market share for Toyota stands at 17%, while that of Tesla is presently at 11%. Analysts have predicted this disparity will narrow over the next few years.
Supply chain issues continue to be a headache for the automotive industry, with Hollis noting that automakers could theoretically move up to 17 million vehicles if it weren’t for these constraints. “Unfortunately, we’ll only be able to sell around 15 [million], so that means there’s an additional 2 million vehicles that will be added to the backlog of demand,” he said.
Toyota’s Bob Young asserted that the hefty price tags of substances used in production were part of the equation. He added that it was necessary for the industry to devise fresh techniques for trimming expenditures, but specified that down-scaling in commodity prices wouldn’t become perceivable for customers until sometime next year.
Now, manufacturers are confronted with a quandary. They must determine how much of the increasing costs can be shifted onto customers. If that is not a feasible option, the additional costs must be taken on by parts vendors or the carmaker itself. “We’re ingesting it in our own profitability,” he continued.
It appears as though the cost for cars is going up for customers. With any luck, the situation will eventually become balanced out by a few years’ time.