{"id":782341,"date":"2026-07-06T09:19:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T09:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/782341\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T09:19:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T09:19:26","slug":"toyota-tundras-slow-sales-blamed-on-lack-of-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/782341\/","title":{"rendered":"Toyota Tundra’s slow sales blamed on lack of awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toyota Australia says limited public awareness is holding back sales of the Tundra<\/a>, with many buyers still unaware the US-built pickup is now officially sold through local dealers.<\/p>\n

After six years of planning and development, the Tundra finally landed in Australian showrooms at the end of 2024 with a starting price of\u00a0$155,990 before on-road costs.<\/p>\n

Shipped from the US to Australia and converted from left- to right-hand drive by Walkinshaw Automotive Group in Melbourne, it was positioned to take on the likes of the\u00a0Ram 1500<\/a>,\u00a0Chevrolet Silverado 1500<\/a>, and\u00a0Ford F-150<\/a>\u00a0in the full-size pickup segment.<\/p>\n

However, the Tundra has struggled to gain a foothold against its American-brand rivals. Toyota delivered 837 examples in 2025 \u2013 the Tundra’s first full year on sale \u2013 which represented just 9.6 per cent of full-size pickup sales.<\/p>\n

Looking for your next car? We’ll help you\u00a0research\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0compare<\/a>\u00a0so you choose with confidence.<\/p>\n

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Toyota’s cut of the full-size pickup pie has improved to 10.5 per cent this year, at least to the end of May, although Chevrolet, Ram, and Ford continue to dominate the segment.<\/p>\n

From Toyota’s perspective, the Tundra’s struggles are best attributed to low public recognition.<\/p>\n

“We had to relaunch the vehicle this year. We called it a relaunch, because frankly, we didn’t have very strong awareness of the Tundra being in market as a genuine Toyota model through our dealer network,” Toyota Australia sales, marketing and franchise operations vice president John Pappas told CarExpert.<\/p>\n

“When you asked the person on the street about the Tundra, through our research we were finding that the majority of people thought that it was still a grey import, and that’s a big problem for us because we’ve invested a lot of time, resources, and money into Tundra development.”<\/p>\n

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Grey import cars are vehicles legally imported from another country through channels outside of a manufacturer’s official, authorised distribution network. The majority of grey imports into Australia are used vehicles from Japan, although American imports are also common.<\/p>\n

While not mentioned by Mr Pappas, high pricing could also be a sticking point for prospective buyers. <\/p>\n

At launch, the Tundra was priced alongside the short-wheelbase Ram 1500 Limited, although it was around $15,000 more expensive than the F-150 Lariat. Similarly, Toyota\u2019s entry came in well above the Silverado 1500.<\/p>\n

No adjustments were made throughout 2025, which only saw the introduction of a new flagship<\/a> Platinum variant carrying a $17,000 premium.<\/p>\n

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Yet, just two months ago Toyota made the move to substantially discount new and demonstrator examples<\/a> of the Tundra built up to July 31, 2025 by between $18,903 (Limited) and $19,413 (Platinum) for NSW customers, despite boasting it didn\u2019t offer discounts on its popular\u00a0RAV4<\/a>\u00a0as it transitioned to a new-generation model early this year.<\/p>\n

The end of financial year (EOFY) offer was slated to expire at the end of June, but has now been extended for at least a further month.<\/p>\n

However, Mr Pappas won’t commit to permanent price reductions across the Tundra range. Instead, Toyota expects recent marketing initiatives to boost demand.<\/p>\n

“We’ve just got to make sure we clear any of our older plated vehicles in order for us to have a normal environment,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“We’ve spent a lot on our marketing to elevate the awareness of Tundra.<\/p>\n

“So we’ve identified that now, particularly through our dealers, we’re getting a lot more enquiries… which is not what we were getting at the start of the year, because the awareness wasn’t there.”<\/p>\n

Should prices revert from August, the base Tundra will cost around $40,000 more than the most affordable F-150, $20,000 more than the entry-level Silverado 1500, and around $14,000 more than the cheapest Ram 1500.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MORE: Explore the Toyota Tundra showroom<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toyota Australia says limited public awareness is holding back sales of the Tundra, with many buyers still unaware…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-782341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}