Toyota Tacoma Ends 2017 With a Sales Surge

Toyota's Tacoma pickup still leads its segment heading into 2018 and sales have never been better.

The Toyota Tacoma capped a solid year of sales in 2017 with a late-year surge. The Tacoma topped 18,000 units in December, something its production facilities struggle to do often. The Tacoma actually came close to 19K units with sales of 18,705 trucks sold. That was an 11% increase over last December. For the full year, the Tacoma saw a 4% growth in sales with just under 200,000 trucks delivered.

The Tacoma owns the smaller than full-size truck segment. With sales of almost double the Chevy Colorado, the Tacoma has not suffered any decline since the new Chevy, its GMC Counterpart the Canyon, and the new Honda Ridgeline came to market. In fact, the Tacoma's sales have continued to be constrained only by Toyota's production, which runs at three full shifts in its North American truck plants.

When the GM Colorado and Canyon's sales are combined, the Tacoma still outsells them by about 27%. No other truck in the class comes anywhere close to the volume the Tacoma garners. However, that may change, depending upon how much capacity Ford allows for its new Ranger, which will return to the market in the U.S. next year after watching literally hundreds of thousands of trucks in the segment be sold to owners Ford could have grabbed.

The Tacoma had a mixed year otherwise. Consumer Reports continues to beat up the Tacoma and even added it to its "Worst Cars" list. The new Tacoma has also had a recall for the rear differential that gave some owners fits.