No One is Buying Full-Size Pickup Trucks
Full-size pickup trucks are not having a great year. Sales of every brand and model of full-size pickup truck are lower than they were this time last year. At the same time, several midsize and compact pickup trucks are enjoying sales booms.
Chevy, Ram, and Ford’s full-size truck sales are down
The full-size pickup with the steepest decline in sales is the Ram truck. By July 1st 2021, Ram had sold 313,069 pickup trucks. But by the same time in 2022, the automaker had only moved 244,984 trucks–according to GoodCarBadCar.com. This is a drop of 21.75%. In June 2022 alone, Ram sold 15,000 fewer trucks than it did in June 2021.
General Motors’ full-size truck sales are not much stronger. So far in 2022, Chevrolet has only sold 291,321 Silverados. That’s 10.12% fewer Chevy Silverados sold than in 2021. And at this point, GMC has only moved 138,411 Sierras–down 14.07% from last year.
Ford’s F-Series sales are a bit more complicated. The Blue Oval has sold 299,345 of its full-size trucks this year, which is down 17.32% from the 362,031 F-Series trucks sold by this time last year.
That said, June was a very strong month for F-Series sales. In June 2021, Ford only sold 45,672 full-size trucks. In June 2022, Ford managed to improve on that number by 26.28%, selling 57,673 full-size trucks.
2022 Toyota truck sales are slow
Nissan and Toyota both manufacture a full-size pickup truck in the United States, for the North American market. The Nissan Titan’s sales are plummeting this year: The company sold just 17,775 Titans by this time in 2021. But so far in 2022, that number dropped 36,92% to just 11,212 Titans sold. The Titan’s sales dropped even further after Q1, with only 1,579 trucks sold during June 2022.
Toyota is doing its best to combat lagging truck sales, the automaker reengineered the 2022 Tundra from the ground up. This new truck shares a fully boxed frame and off-road-ready rear coil springs with the latest Land Cruiser. It also traded its inefficient V8 for a twin-turbocharged V6 from Lexus sports cars.
The Tundra redesign spurred strong sales through Q1 of 2022. By the end of June 2022, Toyota had actually sold 44,316 Tundras which is 1.03% more trucks than the same time in 2021. That said, the new Tundra is losing momentum: in June 2022 Toyota only sold 7,098 Tundras which was 6.90% fewer trucks than June 2021.
While Tundra’s sales numbers ebb away, the midsize Toyota Tacoma’s sales are plummeting. Toyota sold 139,296 Tacomas by July 1st, 2021, but in 2022 it only moved 118,938 units. That’s a drop of 22%.
Some midsize and compact trucks are doing well
Though the Toyota Tacoma’s sales numbers are weak, other midsize pickup trucks are doing relatively well.
General Motors sells both the midsize Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon. Chevy moved 44,190 Colorados by July 1st, 2022. That’s up 13.72% from just 38,859 trucks at this point in 2021. The GMC Canyon is not as big a seller but GMC sold 13,662 of its midsize trucks by July 1st, 2022, up 9.38% from the 12,490 it sold by July 1st, 2021.
Nissan gave its midsize Frontier pickup truck a visual redesign for the 2021 model year, and buyers loved the new look. Nissan only sold 26,394 Frontiers by this time last year but managed to increase sales 63.55%–to 43,168 trucks sold–by July 1st, 2022.
Because Ford introduced its compact Maverick pickup truck for the 2022 model year, there is no old sales data to compare its numbers to. But the Maverick is selling very well. Ford moved 38,753 units of this Bronco-based truck by July 2022. This means the Maverick is outselling the Ford Ranger, Hyundai Santa Cruz, and Honda Ridgeline. Ford Maverick sales are actually neck-and-neck with the Jeep Gladiator.
Learn how the Ford Maverick won truck of the year or see an analysis of 2022 pickup truck sales in the video below:
