With the first quarter of 2025 in the books, it’s our first major opportunity this year to take stock of truck sales.
The midsize truck market has undergone a major revamp over the past couple years, and early 2024 marked a generational shift for two major rivals: the Toyota Tacoma and the Ford Ranger. As a result, sales fell off a cliff as both companies retooled production and buyers held out for the new versions to arrive. Now, both trucks are getting into their stride — barring certain external market forces — and the midsize market, on the whole, has still been strong as we roll into the new year.
Now that we’re churning our way through April, the round of sales reports for first-quarter 2025 have been released, giving us our first big opportunity to see how each midsize truck is faring with buyers. (Other segment updates including full-size trucks and SUVs are coming soon). There’s good news for the two latest overhauled midsize trucks, as both the Tacoma and the Ranger gained massive ground in the months post-launch — 177.5% and a whopping 677.5%, respectively.
Correction 4/5/2025: An earlier version of this post erroneously posted Toyota’s monthly figures as the quarterly figures — drawing numbers from the incorrect (March sales) portion of the chart. Through all of Q1 2025, Toyota has sold 59,825 trucks, making it the front-runner, as it usually is. Sorry for the error!
Midsize pickup sales: Q1 2025 (January 1 through March 31)
| Model | Q1 2025 (Jan – Mar) | Q1 2024 | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toyota Tacoma | 59,825 | 21,558 | +177.5% |
| GM (COMBINED)* | 34,952 | 20,406 | +71.3% |
| Chevy Colorado | 25,856 | 14,922 | +73.3% |
| Ford Ranger | 14,913 | 1,918 | +677.5% |
| Nissan Frontier | 14,481 | 19,744 | -26.7% |
| Jeep Gladiator | 12,057 | 12,989 | -7.2% |
| Honda Ridgeline | 10,951 | 11,296 | -3.1% |
| GMC Canyon | 9,096 | 5,484 | +65.9% |
| TOTAL: | 111,303 | 74,663 | +49.1% |
While the Toyota Tacoma and Ford Ranger picked back up, fortunes have turned for the Nissan Frontier. In Q1 2024, Frontier sales actually increased 16.6%, but that trend has since reversed in Q1 2025, even as the whole market saw a nearly 50% uplift. Nissan did update the Frontier for 2025 with fresh styling touches and quality-of-life changes like a larger touchscreen and wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, as well as better towing capacity and wider availability of the 6-foot long-bed option. For now, though, it appears new buyers aren’t gravitating toward what is now Nissan’s only truck in the U.S. market.
The Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon, for their part, continue to gain serious ground in the new year. Though the GMC Canyon is pulling up the rear in terms of outright sales volume, its momentum by percentage nearly matches its Chevy-branded sibling.
As for the Jeep Gladiator…all things considered, it’s not doing too badly. As a whole, Stellantis didn’t have a great first quarter, and it’s reacting to slipping sales and new import tariffs by laying off staff across North America, including some 900 workers in the U.S. One of the automaker’s buoys has always been Jeep, though, and particuarlly the Wrangler and hte Gladiator. In a three-month period where the company lost ground on almost every front, the Wrangler’s 1% dip and Gladiator’s 7% decline really softened what could have been a much harsher blow for the Jeep brand, and Stellantis in general. The full-size Wagoneer SUV, for example, dropped by 59%, while the Grand Wagoneer dropped by 48%.
Then there’s the Honda Ridgeline — the perennial “that’s not a truck!” entry in the midsize segment, according to some folks out there. I personally disagree with that take, and a remarkably consistent number of buyers seem to as well. All things considered, Honda’s unibody SUV-based pickup sells about 3,000 to 4,000 units a month like clockwork, and that’s exactly what happened here. It is down a slight 3.1%, but even as it ages, the Ridgeline still manages to find a narrow, but dedicated fan base and just keeps chugging along.
Small truck sales fall, but Maverick still dominates
After a barnstorming first quarter of 2024, Ford Maverick sales seem to have cooled off a bit going into the first three months of 2025. Now, Ford Motor Company did update the model for the new year, including bringing all-wheel drive to the hybrid model. There’s also a new Lobo street truck option, while packages including the FX4 and Tremor make their return. Overall, Maverick sales more or less held steady, dropping off by a modest 2.7% from the same time period last year.
The Hyundai Santa Cruz, on the other hand, isn’t quite so lucky. It, too, saw an update for the 2025 model year to keep it fresh against its nemesis. Nevertheless, while Hyundai’s overall quarterly sales improved by 10% year-over-year, it wasn’t thanks to people buying a new Santa Cruz. In fact, most of it came down to the related Tucson crossover (which saw its sales pick up 21%), as well as the midsize Santa Fe SUV (up 20%).
| Model | Q1 2025 | Q1 2024 | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ford Maverick | 38,015 | 39,061 | -2.7% |
| Hyundai Santa Cruz | 6,648 | 8,417 | -21.1% |
| TOTAL: | 44,663 | 47,478 | -5.9% |
What can we expect moving forward?
So far, it appears the threat of tariffs haven’t scared buyers away from their new truck purchases. In fact, the specter of 25% import duties on the horizon may have done just the opposite, and pushed more buyers to pull the trigger on their new midsize truck now, before automakers begin reacting to shakier market conditions. At this point, it’s unclear exactly how much the prospect of higher MSRPs could rattle sales in Q2 and beyond. While some automakers pledged to at least temporarily refrain from raising prices, doing so in the coming months may shake consumer confidence to the point where this first-quarter momentum could stall out by mid-summer or into the fall.
To be clear, we obviously want to see a strong and robust market where consumers have plenty of choice at appealing (or at least somewhat palatable) prices. That’s good for buyers, and ultimately good for workers as continued demand means continued production. Trucks rule the roads in most U.S. states, and while I suspect folks will continue to buy even at higher prices, we’ll have to wait and see how this current period of uncertainty shakes out when automakers report Q2 sales in July.
