Ford, Honda and Toyota offer some insight into July 2022’s midsize truck sales.
Poring over July’s full-size truck sales — yes, all three data points! — the month looked pretty decent in the full-size segment. Keep in mind that General Motors, Ram and Nissan report sales quarterly, so we will not have another complete picture of the truck market until early October. Still, we do have a few numbers to crunch, so let’s see if things are looking up in the midsize arena with Ford, Honda and Toyota.
Well, not quite. While these numbers sort of exist in a vacuum, it seems some buyers went in a different direction compared to July 2021. Per sales data aggregator Good Car Bad Car, it appears Toyota sold 23,917 Tacoma trucks in July (a 1.52% gain from last July). Now, while the trusty Tacoma is still by far the segment leader, it didn’t post major gains. What’s more, its year-to-date sales are down by 18.6%, with Toyota dealers moving 132,565 trucks (compared to 162,854 by this time last year).
When it comes to the Ford Ranger, buyers seem to have stayed away when you consider how many left the Blue Oval’s dealerships last year. In July 2022, the automaker sold just 3,973 examples, compared to 5,960 Rangers in July 2021. That’s a one-third drop (33.3%), though there may be a couple of plausible explanations for that figure — more on that in a moment.
Then, there’s the surprising number in the sales charts: the Honda Ridgeline. Last month, Andre reported Honda’s sales for its unibody pickup were down 18.8% through the first half of the year. In July, though, the Ridgeline proved a popular option for buyers, with 4,020 putting one in their driveway. That’s a whopping 70.7% month-over-month increase, and enough to halve that earlier year-to-date percentage gap. Through the end of last month, the Honda is down 10.9%, selling 23,817 examples.
Check out the chart below for the concrete numbers, plus beyond for some further exploration about the Ranger’s sales numbers.
July 2022 Midsize Truck Sales (with month-over-month changes)
| Model | July 2022 | July 2021 | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toyota Tacoma | 23,917 | 23,558 | +1.5% |
| Honda Ridgeline | 4,020 | 2,355 | +70.7% |
| Ford Ranger | 3,973 | 5,960 | -33.3% |
| – GM (COMBINED)* | — (Q3 sales coming in October) | — | — |
| Chevy Colorado | — (Q3 sales coming in October) | — | — |
| Jeep Gladiator | — (Q3 sales coming in October) | — | — |
| GMC Canyon | — (Q3 sales coming in October) | — | — |
| Nissan Frontier | — (Q3 sales coming in October) | — | — |
What’s going on with the Ranger?
Before we dig into it, it’s worth noting that the following are speculative thoughts, all of which should be taken with a grain of salt. Any (or none) of the following explanations could explain the Ranger’s drop in July 2022. For year-to-date context, Ford Ranger sales are down 41.2% (37,813 trucks sold through 2022 so far, versus 64,331 this time last year):
- Folks could be waiting it out for the new Ranger, set to reach U.S. dealers next summer.
- Ford builds the current North American Ranger alongside the Bronco in Wayne, Michigan. With current supply constraints, the automaker could be favoring Bronco production (but we don’t yet have any official word from Ford on that yet).
- Buyers cross-shopping midsize trucks and SUVs could be opting for the Bronco instead of the Ranger. July’s Bronco figures are up 224.1% from July 2021.
- Some prospective Ranger buyers could be down-sizing to the Maverick instead. In July alone, Ford dealers moved 6,720 Mavericks, and so far in 2022, they’ve sold 45,473 examples.
- And finally, folks could be moving toward other truck options entirely, be it the Toyota Tacoma, Jeep Gladiator, Chevy Colorado/GMC Canyon, Nissan Frontier, or something else.
Again, we’ll have more plentiful sales data in October but check back each month for more sales updates, including TFLtruck’s most recent full-size trucks report.
