For yet another year, the best-selling carmaker in the world is Toyota. They say if you come at the king, you best not miss. Toyota came at the old king (Volkswagen) and very much didn’t whiff. Can anyone catch the automaker?
You don’t need Rebecca Black to tell you it’s Friday, Friday here at The Morning Dump. Automakers are announcing full-year results and, while Ford had a good year from a sales perspective, there were some costs involved. One of the biggest issues in Q4? People are living longer.
General Motors has long had a large footprint in Canada, but that’s starting to go away as the company retrenches in the United States, leading to more job cuts. And while we’re on the topic of Canada, a whistleblower just took in a cool $1 million for helping the government discover what it calls a “bid-rigging scheme” involving a Canadian online auction company.
Toyota Remains The King
It’s hard to think of two carmakers more headed in the opposite direction than Volkswagen and Toyota. I remember back in 2009 writing about how Volkswagen was losing its edge by embracing beige, uninteresting designs (what I called the beigekrieg). Toyota was the king of biege at the time, but then the relatively young scion of the ruling Toyoda family (not that Scion) decided that his ancestral company could probably make reliable and interesting cars.
In the last 16 years, Volkswagen has pinballed from one problem to the next: a self-inflicted emissions scandal, overindexing on EVs, and not seeing the rise of Chinese automakers it helped train, to name just a few.
Toyota has had its own scandals, but has been able to weather the disruption in the markets better than basically everyone else, and this showed up in its global sales. For the calendar year 2025, Toyota and its various brands sold a total of 11.3 million vehicles, which is a record for the automaker. By comparison, Volkswagen sales fell slightly, finishing just below 9 million global sales. Hyundai grew by about as much as VW shrank, reaching 7.3 million sales.
Some of this is inertia, as Toyota has slowly built a reputation for building reliable cars. Some of this has to do with Toyota aggressively expanding in foreign markets. At least in the United States, a mix of affordable cars and hybrids seems to be the key, as Erin Keating over at Cox Automotive points out:
Six Toyota vehicles have MSRPs starting under $30,000, a critical advantage when affordability remains a top challenge for many consumers. According to Cox Automotive forecasts, the industry faces ongoing affordability constraints at the start of 2026, with average monthly finance payments hitting $767 in December 2025, the highest level in 18 months. New-vehicle affordability pressures are expected to keep total sales around 15.8 million in 2026. Still, in 2025, Toyota grew market share with standout new vehicles, including the Corolla Cross, which grew solidly in a crowded segment, up 7.3% despite strong competition.
[…]
Toyota’s “1:6:90” philosophy reflects strategic pragmatism: The rare materials needed to create one battery-electric vehicle (BEV) could produce six plug-in hybrids or 90 hybrids. Rather than betting solely on BEVs, Toyota maintains multiple powertrain pathways to meet consumers wherever they are on the adoption curve.
This approach proved prescient in 2025. After federal EV tax credits expired on Sept. 30, EV retail share fell to 5.8% in Q4 2025, down 2.9 percentage points from the prior year. Meanwhile, conventional hybrid sales climbed 27.6% to 2.05 million units for the full year. Toyota’s electrified portfolio – spanning gas, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and the forthcoming Lexus LFA Concept BEV – positions them to serve customers across the spectrum as the market adjusts to a post-incentive landscape.
With tariff challenges, relatively flat sales in Europe and the United States likely, and China continuing to favor homegrown brands, I don’t see anyone who can really challenge Toyota. Both Ford and GM have pulled back globally, and Hyundai might be able to catch up with Volkswagen, but it doesn’t have the footprint in the United States that Toyota does (yet). This could all change in a few years, but it’ll take a few years.
Ford Will Take A $600 Million Hit To Q4 Earnings Because People Are Living Longer
It’s a bad week to be an actuary at Ford, but a good one to be a Ford retiree. They’re living longer! Well, the retirees are living longer; I’m not sure how the actuaries will fare given that a miscalculation contributed to a $600 million loss, according to a company filing.
What happened? The Detroit Free Press has the news:
In the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Ford said it will take a “remeasurement loss” for its U.S. plans, which was largely due to actuarial losses compared to plan assumptions. A remeasurement loss means a company has reevaluated the value of long-term assets or foreign currency and found the assets have decreased in value compared to anticipated figures. Actuarial losses are financial shortfalls in pension plans. Ford said non-U.S. remeasurement costs were a result of measurement assumptions, including improved life expectancy.
One person’s good news is another’s bad news.
GM Lays Off 700 Workers At Oshawa
There’s a grimness to the news coming out of Canada, as the government there contends with the fact that its longtime ally to the south is doing all it can to reshore production. The latest hit is GM’s Oshawa plant, which builds the popular Silverado. A shift is being cut, which means about 700 union workers are out of a job, and more are likely to feel the impact.
GM is blaming the “evolving trade environment”, and the workers are blaming politics, per the CBC:
At the time, spokesperson Jennifer Wright told CBC Toronto that “forecasted demand and the evolving trade environment” were behind the cut.
GM Canada’s latest statement doesn’t mention tariffs. Still, Unifor National President Lana Payne said GM “has made a clear decision to cave to Donald Trump” in a statement on Thursday.
She said GM is making Oshawa workers “pay for that appeasement with their jobs.”
What’s amusing here is that Barra told workers (via The Wall Street Journal) that Canada warming up to China was a bad and inexplicable move:
Barra said Canada’s China deal, announced earlier this month, is counter to building a strong North American industrial base and to protecting jobs and national security on the continent.
“I can’t explain why the decision was made in Canada,” Barra said during an all-hands meeting with employees Tuesday. “It becomes a very slippery slope.”
It may very well be a slippery slope, but it feels disingenuous to say “I can’t explain” the decision when both General Motors and Stellantis have Lucy-with-the-football’d Canadian autoworkers again and again this year.
Someone Made $1 Million Telling On An Auto Auction For Bid-Rigging
The Justice Department gave out its first-ever $1 million reward for a whistleblower in a “bid-rigging” case involving online car-auction platform EBLOCK, a Canadian dealer-to-dealer wholesale online auction.
From the Antitrust Division’s press release:
EBLOCK Corporation offers an online auction platform for used vehicles. In November 2020, EBLOCK acquired Company A, another online auction platform for used vehicles. According to the Criminal Information and Deferred Prosecution Agreement filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, EBLOCK did not take immediate action after the acquisition to end the bid-rigging conspiracy and fraud at Company A. From November 2020 to February 2022, individuals at Company A conspired with individuals at Company B to suppress and eliminate competition for used vehicles sold on Company A’s online auction platform, in violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1. EBLOCK also did not take immediate action to end “shill bidding” on Company A’s platform, resulting in the placement of fake bids intended to artificially increase the sales prices for used vehicles, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343.
How did it work?
As described in the court documents, legacy employees at Company A conspired with employees at Company B to share bidding information and agree on the maximum amount Company A or Company B would bid on certain vehicles. Company A employees provided special access and user permissions to Company B that enabled it to view the confidential bidding information of other buyers and sellers on its auction site. The co-conspirators maintained a shared inventory of vehicles purchased pursuant to the bid rigging scheme, and they coordinated to relist those vehicles and place shill bids with the intention of artificially increasing the prices paid by legitimate buyers. They also misrepresented the numbers and identities of these fake bidders during the online auctions by commissioning the development of software that would automatically place shill bids under the names of actual auto dealerships without those dealerships’ consent. The co-conspirators pooled and split the profits from the scheme. During the course of these actions, various documents in support of the scheme were sent via U.S. Mail.
It’s a Canadian company, but they made the time-honored mistake of using the U.S. Mail. I wonder if USPIS got involved. I don’t know if it is against the law, but they also appear to be bribing bidders with fried chicken. I’ve now reported this, gimme $1 million please.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I made a joke about the song “Friday” in the lede, which was a song that was terrible in a confusingly endearing way. It went viral, and I think most people would just crawl into a hole and disappear forever if they’d made it. Not Rebecca Black! She’s gone on to have a career as a singer and a DJ. I respect a comeback, so here’s Rebecca Black covering Addison Rae’s “Fame is a Gun” for LIKE A VERSION.
The Big Question
Who could possibly take down Toyota?
Top photo: Toyota, DepositPhotos.com
Hopefully no one
I live in a town that is almost entirely supported by Toyota or their suppliers. Toyota makes it a nice place to live and grow a family by paying high wages and donating to the community.
I don’t know about the rest of the world, but in the US, the companies that could take Toyota down are Toyota Dealers. When I was shopping, every Toyota dealer I engaged with acted like their poop don’t stink, and ADM stickers of $4000+ were the rule, not the exception. This is how I wound up owning a Mazda CX-5 instead of the RAV4 that I (thought I) wanted to buy.
I’m sure there are a handful of Toyota dealers that sell at MSRP or below, but they sure are rare.
1:6:90 is such a good way to explain the benefits of PHEV/HEV over BEV, at least until we get solid state batteries. That said an EREV with a solid state battery would absolutely rule
Matt, “Like A Version” has some goddamn great covers by some great artists, thanks for plugging it.
The only other thing I have to say is the RAV-4 makes a surprisingly cool looking monster truck.
I was curious what that vehicle was. I can’t distinguish most SUVs at all, they are so bland.
I had never heard of Rebecca Black, much less “Friday” till now. So I watched that video. Maybe its my GenX tastes but I found it no better and no worse than other teen pop music. Given the “controversy” got her on Good Morning America at 13 I wouldn’t be surprised if it hadn’t all been faked as a marketing ploy.
Nothing is unstoppable but Toyota has a hell of a lot of momentum. Taking it slow and easy with EVs while focusing on hybrids was the right call. Toyota sells very strongly in multiple vehicle segments and, unlike the Big3, their solvency isn’t entirely dependent on a single full size half ton pickup model. They’ve been very successful because they provide what a lot of people want and tend not to burn their customers. The enthusiast crowd hates them for this everyman approach but that demographic has way more opinion than buying power.
That said, as a ToMoCo owner, I’m not liking what I’m seeing in the body-on-frame Hybrid Max powertrains. I’m hoping the next gen of those is way better, because they need to be. My 4Runner is a dinosaur but it’s a livable simple one that works every time, always. I’m OK jumping into a turbo hybrid, but it also needs to work well and the current Hybrid Max is inefficient, complicated, very heavy, very expensive, and imposes unacceptable packaging compromises. It’s a miss, and too many of those will hurt your marketshare. Even if you’re Toyota.
Cars are expensive to buy and expensive to operate. Toyota’s bread and butter is selling cars that are less expensive to operate without being that much more expensive to buy. As long as they don’t let hubris screw everything up they should continue to dominate the global markets for years to come.
Toyota, like most companies at the top, will most likely take out itself. That probably won’t happen soon, but who knows. Hyundai/Kia might or might not end up being the new ones on top. There’s no certainty in this world. No one knows what the future holds, and if they say they do, they’re lying.
(Also does anyone else think there should’ve been more Toyota monster trucks? Just me? Ok…)
They can only ride on the reliable car stereotype for so long, when their new cars are anything but reliable.
I’ve been hearing some variant of the “they can only rest on the laurels of their past reputation for so long” for–literally–15 years now. When’s it going to come true?
Despite hiccups they topped the Consumer Reports reliability ratings in 2025. If anyone has better stats I’m all ears.
That’s probably how it starts…or would if it didn’t feel like everything else was exactly the same.
Saw it coming with Toyota. Told anyone who would listen that going whole hog on EV was going to backfire and Toyota’s steady and sensible approach would win out. Toyota has its own problems but they definitely read the market right.
Toyota gets a lot of flak for not moving quickly, and being slow to adopt.
Contrasting with Hyundai’s “add all the options”
Both seem to be doing better that the traditional-3 who continue to struggle against them – except with american trucks.
I’m sure Toyota thinks the Hilux would tank the Tacoma’s sales – but it does make me wonder if it might make a dent in the traditional full-size mentality.
“I’m sure Toyota thinks the Hilux would tank the Tacoma’s sales – but it does make me wonder if it might make a dent in the traditional full-size mentality.”
The Hilux is smaller than the Tacoma and the Tacoma is actually the better truck these days IMO.
RFK to the rescue!
May I interest you in a weasel sandwich?
Only if I can wash it down with a glass of raw milk!
Ah Toyota. Wasn’t it just a short 2 or 3 years ago everyone was beating them down because they didn’t jump into the EV craze?
Celebrating Toyota’s expected downfall was a favorite topic among commenters on EV enthusiast websites who mistakenly believed Toyota would be caught flat footed by the EV revolution and swept under.
They failed to understand the huge spread in US market penetration between affluent early adopters among the first to buy Teslas and the fair number of laggards who to this day would never consider a hybrid.
They also ignored the loyalty and patience of Toyota’s huge consumer base, many of whom would gladly wait until Toyota makes something they want and immediately trade in any EV in their garage the moment Toyota built a comparable model
“One person’s good news is another’s bad news.”
Case in point:
“GM Lays Off 700 Workers At Oshawa”
Bad for those workers, good (probably) for the executive’s third vacation house payments.
I’m not confident that is quite how this particular issue will play out. In fact, I would bet that GM execs are pretty pissed that they are having to shut down a shift at a TRUCK PLANT right now. Rehoming that production I’m sure is expensive and I doubt there is a penny worth of savings in doing so.
They’ve decided that whatever damage they take from moving production is worth avoiding whatever damage they would have taken from Mango Musso getting his feelings hurt that they didn’t grovel sufficiently.
Don’t worry, taxpayer bailouts are coming to save those execs!
As a resident of Ontario, with a lot of friends from the western portion of the province, “buy GM and support local” was the rallying cry for 30+ years.
I don’t hear that any more from the same people who once shouted it.
I can’t afford their insanely priced trucks with exploding engines anyways, so tomorrow I’m going to look at a 26 year old truck, whose fuel consumption I will likely offset with a Chinese EV in my driveway for commuting.
Great play, big 3.
Oh yeah, who can dethrone Toyota? Hyundai/Kia. Their EV and hybrid game is strong and their pricing is very competitive.
Even here in Canada, you can’t swing a cat without hitting 5 Palisades and a Tucson.
Down here in Alabama is largely the same — the Korean brands basically leapfrogged the Japanese in the 2000s pretty quickly (Partly bolstered by the Korean manufacturing expansion in the region creating jobs and goodwill).
Any “Buy American!” jingoism died down 20+ years ago, and that was mostly about trucks anyway.
Kiundai are literally everywhere, and I can’t fault people — at least initially, they offer even more features than Honda and Toyota at about 90% of the price. My final shortlist for a new car was a Sportage Hybrid (because I don’t like the Tucson’s styling and commonness). I ended up with a used BMW X3 because we’re all gluttons for punishment around here, in some small way.
I mean, I’m shopping a gas Excursion cause that $700+/mo new truck payment buys a LOT of gas, and I WFH 2-3 days a week on average.
Found your truck. It’s in California but it looks to be in great shape.
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/cto/d/san-francisco-2002-dodge-dakota/7910845180.html
Gonna be a tight fit with 3 people and a rottweiler.
So crew cab then?
They’ve all long rotted away up here. If the 4.7 magnum didn’t pop a head gasket and warp the heads first.
And I’d sooner walk than attempt the gauntlet of traveling home 3000+ miles across the US as a Canadian at the moment.
Cross the border in BC and the only US portion will be California, Oregon and Washington which AFAIK are Canada friendly. The worst flak you might be from Oregonians on the California plate but it’s a truck so maybe not.
Gotta cross the border first. And I ain’t keen on handing over 5 years worth of all my social media, e-mails, etc.
How about this one?
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/cto/d/vallejo-1999-dodge-ram-slt-magnum/7908235784.html
Extended is no go either. Wife & daughter are all legs.
Crew cab:
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/scz/cto/d/santa-cruz-2001-ford-sports-track-2wd/7911623101.html
Not bad, but that 4.0 will struggle pulling 6000lbs (average project car + U-Haul car trailer)
How about this then?
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/cto/d/fulton-1500-dodge-ram/7911145652.html
Or this?
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/cto/d/san-jose-2001-ford-f150-lariat/7911851641.html
Toyota is a juggernaut. I’ve mentioned before (along with others) my surprise at how many European taxis — along with everyday cars — have suddenly become Toyotas in recent years. These were places that for a very long time would usually drive their home-grown brands, or at least another European brand, out of a sense of pride or just misguided loyalty.
I should have seen this coming decades ago when we saw the Hilux as the vehicle of choice for African militias. Now change is still being made, it’s just called “Corolla Hybrid” now. Possibly the best single car for the most people around the world, all in one package.
And as an American (without too much to be proud of these days), I like the fact that we were sort of the Early Adopters for Japanese cars, even as Europe thumbed their nose at most Japanese cars. In the long run across millions of samples, lower operating costs tend to win. We were onto something!
No one is taking down Toyota. And Rebecca Black’s rebrand and return as a queer hyperpop girlie has been cool to watch. She’s got some talent to be able to turn being an early viral (negative) meme into a totally legit and respectful creative career. I can’t say her music or really any hyperpop is my cup of tea (in fact I think it’s literally the point that I stopped “getting it” and began my transition to an out of touch dad) but I’ve got nothing but respect for her game.
Yeah, good on her for keeping at it. I know if I’d have had something happen like Friday, I’d have probably walked into the ocean and kept walking until the bubbles stopped.
The song in the video isn’t my cup of tea, but it definitely isn’t bad at all…
Toyota.
Their Hybrid strategy is mostly good.
However, their RWD based Hybrids are shit, their BEVs are Meh, and their Turbocharged DI motors are not doing so hot either.
In their shoes I’d put everything into producing port injection naturally aspirated E-CVT based drivetrains and I’d throw all my R&D Funds into that and EREVs for Heavier duty applications that they seemingly haven’t figured out how to make E-CVTs work for (Tacoma, Tundra, 4Runner, Land Cruiser Prado, Sequoia, etc.)
Agreed. Toyota will have to self-own themselves to fail. Not unlike GM’s hubris, oh wait, I guess it is gm now since GM went bankrupt.
Hi Autopian folks!
My email is no longer recognized when trying to log in. When I enter it to get the sign in link I’m told the email has no associated account, but I’m clearly here and posting comments. Is this a known issue? I can only post from browsers that still retain the session cookie.
I have no other way to report this, sorry for spamming a random comment section.
I’m having the same issue.
Hey y’all, you can always email me if you’ve got an issue!
Thanks for the help, Matt! I’m good to go now. Appreciate you guys!
Toyota is in the best position to take down Toyota. Other companies are rarely the thing that topples the biggest businesses. It’s missteps or corruption from within that usually bring them down.
I’m not saying Toyota has a problem with either right now, but that’s what’ll bring them down if anything is going to.
Its a good point and one even demonstrated in this article. While Toyota DID make really good steps, their ability to pass up VW was definitely enabled by mistakes made by VW to really open that door.
Absolutely. Toyota didn’t force VW to make critical errors. Sure, they positioned themselves well to take advantage of shifts from those errors, but they would have also been well positioned to keep plugging along with VW still doing well.
I’d go so far as to say no market leading company has ever been caught without glaring mistakes (VW, GM before them, and even Ford hanging on to the Model T far too long in the face of newer competitors 100 years ago)
I agree that Toyota is the most likely company to take them down. Complacency and pride have taken down many kings.
I’d say a variation is Toyoda could take down Toyota, just like Musk and Tesla. At least they moved him out of the CEO position, but probably can’t completely get rid of him.
On another note, I’m guessing it’ll be the Chinese like BYD taking their sales in “other” markets that could have the largest shorter term impact.
Curious how Kaizen might mitigate (or worsen) that.
I would add that what could help Toyota take themselves out is the same thing that will keep the Koreans from being in a place to take them out: their dealers.
The dealership experience at Toyota used to be average. I’m sure there are still a lot of good dealers you can work with if you’re willing to travel but they are gaining a reputation that the Toyota headquarters should take note of. In the US I guess it’s just really hard to fix that situation but they should probably try.
I like a lot of what Hyundai and Kia offer and I like a lot of what Toyota has done. I’m not in a place where I’d refuse to go into a Toyota dealer (I would be very picky about which one though) but I would not do business with the Hyundai/Kia dealers. It’s just not worth it to me.
TL;DR version: Watch the Toyota dealers and see if they don’t start to slide because of their reputation.