Speaking at a shareholder meeting this week, Toyota executive vice president Tokuichi Uranishi conceded that beating 2007’s 2.62 million sales figures would be difficult to achieve. The carmaker’s original goal, first revealed in December last year, was to sell 2.64 million vehicles in the U.S. by the end of 2008 and increase its global sales by 5% to 9.85 million vehicles.
Toyota will review its sales targets next month and is expected to downgrade its projections below that of the 2007 sales figures. Uranishi also predicted that total U.S. sales could slip under 15 million vehicles this year, reports The Detroit News.
Falling demand for large SUVs and pickups has hit most carmakers in the U.S. hard, and has even seen Toyota scale back production of its Tundra and Sequoia models in response.