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Who sold the most small/midsize pickups in 2012? PickupTrucks.com investigates that, too

PickupTrucks.com has taken another look at the sales of its favorite vehicle bodystyle as part of an ongoing series. According to registration data from R.L. Polk, the Toyota Tacoma easily took the crown as America's best-selling mid-sized pickup, with 133,477 units rolling into new homes in 2012. For comparison, the second-place Nissan Frontier only saw 50,566 registrations.
We feel compelled to point out that before Ford pulled the plug on its ancient Ranger, the company was moving some 75,000 units per year. That number had shriveled to 15,662 by 2012, which was still enough to surpass the Honda Ridgeline. Interestingly enough, one person brought home a brand-new Hummer H3T as well. But mid-sized trucks represent only a fraction of total pickup sales. Dealers sold a total of 241,471 midsizers last year compared to 988,326 half-tons.
That segment was dominated by General Motors with 533,814 sales followed by Ford at 478,204. Ram Trucks trailed behind in third with 241,204 units with Toyota close behind at 229,769. Nissan, meanwhile, remains a distant fifth. Head over to PickupTrucks.com for a closer look at the breakdown in each segment.

Toyota says president, chairman of scandal-hit Daihatsu unit to step down

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday both the president and chairman of Daihatsu Motor will step down almost a year after the small-car unit said it had rigged collision safety-tests. The departures are among the most drastic changes Daihatsu has made so far, as Toyota seeks to return the brand to its roots as one of Japan's most iconic compact car makers. Toyota faces a potential hit to its reputation from the safety certification lapses at Daihatsu, as well as separate governance issues at truck maker Hino Motors and affiliate Toyota Industries. The scandals at the three companies triggered a rare apology of Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda last month. In a statement, the world's top-selling automaker said its chief executive officer for the Latin America and Caribbean region, Masahiro Inoue, will replace Soichiro Okudaira as Daihatsu's president effective March 1. Daihatsu's chairman, Sunao Matsubayashi, will also step down and will not be replaced, Toyota added. The outgoing Okudaira had worked at Toyota for nearly four decades before becoming president of Daihatsu in 2017, a year after it became a wholly owned Toyota subsidiary. Toyota Chief Executive Koji Sato told reporters, however, that the organizational change at Daihatsu was not carried out as a punishment for the outgoing executives. In volume terms, Daihatsu accounted for 7% of Toyota's total group sales of 11.2 million vehicles in 2023, including those of the luxury Lexus brand and Hino Motors. Given the misconduct over the safety test certification applications, Daihatsu also will be removed from a commercial vehicle partnership known as the Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies (CJPT), the automaker said in a separate statement. The partnership was established in April 2021 by Toyota, Hino and Isuzu Motors to facilitate technology development for commercial vehicles. Suzuki Motor and Daihatsu joined in July the same year. Daihatsu's 10% equity stake in the partnership will be transferred to Toyota, the statement said. (Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Kim Coghill & Shri Navaratnam and Miral Fahmy) Government/Legal Hirings/Firings/Layoffs Plants/Manufacturing Toyota Daihatsu

Toyota teams with FirstElement Fuel on 19 hydrogen stations in California

Cross Toyota with a former General Motors and Hyundai executive and you might just get some real momentum when it comes to hydrogen refueling station deployment. Toyota and FirstElement Fuel Inc., which is headed by ex-GM and Hyundai executive Joel Ewanick, are working together on a project designed to complement California's agreement to spend about $200 million building 100 stations in the state. And while Toyota didn't put out any specific numbers, Automotive News reports that FirstElement received a $27.6 million grant from the California Energy Commission to build 19 stations, which will be sited at existing fueling spots and spaced far enough apart to be reachable by anyone within the state. In all, California has granted $47 million for the deployment of 28 new stations. Additionally, Toyota will get Linde to build a refueling station on a Toyota-owned property in the San Francisco Bay Area's San Ramon, Calif. Toyota, which is targeting a full-tank range of 300 miles and a five-minute refueling time for its fuel-cell sedan, had its fuel-cell prototype make its North American debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. The company said at the time that 68 stations could serve 10,000 hydrogen vehicles. And while that station number doesn't sound terribly high, consider that there are fewer than 10 hydrogen refueling stations in California now. Check out Toyota's press release below and Autoblog's impressions from a drive of one of Toyota's fuel-cell prototypes late last year here. Toyota Collaborates with FirstElement, Providing Financial Assistance to Facilitate a Hydrogen Refueling Network in Targeted California Locations Toyota also will collaborate with hydrogen provider Linde, which will build a public hydrogen refueling facility at the Toyota San Francisco Regional Office May 01, 2014 TORRANCE, Calif. (May 1, 2014) – "The issue of hydrogen refueling infrastructure is not so much about how many stations; but rather, location, location, location," stated Bob Carter, senior vice president, Automotive Operations, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. (TMS), just four months ago at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where he unveiled a hydrogen fuel cell sedan due to launch in 2015. "Solutions are being found through collaboration between government, academia, carmakers and energy providers.