Posted by Brian Wong | January 21, 2016

In a move that signals optimism about the U.S. pickup truck and SUV market, Toyota (and by extension Lexus and Scion) plans to change its production levels of cars and trucks to reflect changes in consumer demand.

According to Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota North America, Toyota's overall truck ratio was about 7 percent below the industry average five years ago, but it has climbed since then and now sits behind the industry average by only two points.

For some added perspective, Toyota Motor Corp. reported total U.S. sales of 2,499,313 vehicles in 2015, with cars representing 51 percent of that total versus 49 percent for light trucks. However, in December, truck share jumped to 53 percent according to Automotive News. In response to this trend, Toyota has decided to bump up its light-truck output for 2016 to 54 percent of the total vehicle mix, up from a flat 50 percent last year.

This means more shifts at the Texas assembly plant to build more pickups, as well as calling in more RAV4 crossovers from Canada and expanding the Indiana plant so it can produce 30,000 more Highlander SUVs. In fact, the percentage increase in Tacoma production when compared to 2012 sales data is up 21 percent year over year (2012 vs 2015); likewise, Tundra production (solely from the San Antonio plant) is up 15 percent in the same time period.

And it's not just Toyota — Lexus is coming along for the ride as well, targeting an even larger truck mix than Toyota (55 percent to 54 percent).

Lentz cited a fear of the financial crises and potentially rising fuel prices as reasons for Toyota to be wary of this shift, but barring unforeseen circumstances it looks like Toyota is making the smart play here to meet an uptick in consumer desire for pickups and SUVs.

Cars.com image by Evan Sears