Toyota's U.S. Sales Fall 24.2% in October, Lexus Sales Plunge 37.6%

In what may be one of the worst months in U.S. automotive sales in more than two decades, the Toyota Group which consists of the Toyota, Lexus and Scion brands reported U.S. October sales of 152,101 vehicles, a decrease of 25.9 percent from last October, on a daily selling rate basis. More specifically, the Toyota division -including Scion- posted October sales of 135,818 units, a decrease of 24.2 percent from last year while Lexus reported sales of 16,283 units, a 37.6 percent drop from the same month a year-ago.

Toyota's passenger cars recorded October sales of 84,904 units, down 14.2 percent from the same period last year. Even the "hot" Prius didn't manage to escape unhurt with sales of 11,804 units, a 13.6 percent drop from last year. Surprisingly, the Corolla achieved its best-ever October sales with 27,386 units, up 2.2 percent over the year-ago month. The firm's light truck sales came up to 50,914 units, down 36.5 percent from October 2007. Scion posted October sales of 6,743 units.

In spite of what you may think, Lexus passenger cars (IS, ES, GS, LS and SC) performed worse than their SUV siblings with October sales of 9,332 units, a decrease of 40.2 percent from October 2007. The luxury firm's SUVs meaning the RX, GX and LX models recorded October sales of 6,951 units, down 33.7 percent from the year-ago month.

Overall, for the first 10 months of the year, Toyota has sold 1,724,902 passenger cars and light trucks in the U.S.A, down 10.9 percent from last year while Lexus' 220,502 vehicles, off 18.6 percent from a year earlier.