The Toyota Hilux has been around for many years as a series of compact trucks that are produced and marketed by Toyota. In the United States the Hilux name was retired back in 1976, when it was just called “truck”, “pickup truck”, or “compact truck”. In most other countries you are going to hear the term Hilux used in regards to the Toyoya vehicle. The most popular version of the truck in the United States is the Toyota SR5, which is actually an option package offered by the company.
Since the Tacoma was released in 1995, the Hilux/Pickup was discontinued in the United States, but it is still one of the best sellers in many other countries, including Australia. The Toyota Hilux has been one of the best sellers in the country for the company and it has other companies looking for ways to make headway against them. One of those companies is Nissan and according to reports a new model is on the way.
Even though a new model is on the way from Nissan, the company claims that it will not be targeting the 2015 Toyota Hilux in terms of leading in sales for the country. The Toyota Hilux has been at the top of the sales charts for more than 10 years and that has gained the company plenty of respect and will likely keep any other company from getting any ideas about trying to dethrone them from the top spot.
According to the CEO for Nissan Australia, Richard Emery, the company will not challenge the 2015 Toyota Hilux and will not “try to overtake HiLux”. He also went on to say that the company’s best sales year was last year when it sold about 25,000 Nissan Navara models. Some might think that Nissan is just going to sit back and allow Toyota to take over, but that does not seem to be the case when you ask Emery. Instead, he references how a company in the country might have a fleet of the 2015 Toyota Hilux with a team of mechanics that can take one apart and put it together in their sleep.
That is a tough situation for any company to overcome. It would take Nissan a lot of money to market the new truck to those types of companies and then hope that the model they are pushing is just as strong and useful as the Toyota Hilux was for them. The bad news of the company is that after one year, the odds are very good that the company would go right back to the Toyota Hilux they have been used to. That is how Toyota has the grab of most of the market share in Australia.