Subaru debuted its 2015 Outback, now the fifth generation, at the New York International Auto Show in April. The heavily revised Outback – on sale this summer – has the roomiest interior and best fuel-efficiency in the model’s 20-year history.
Subaru said late Friday that it would stop the consignment assembly of Toyota Camry cars at its plant in Lafayette, Indiana. The fast growing brand needs the 100,000-unit capacity this will release in the U.S. as it continues to set monthly sales records, most recently in April when U.S. sales topped 40,000 vehicles, a 22% increase compared with April 2013 sales of 32,943. This was the best-ever April in company history. Year-to-date sales for Subaru total 152,470, a 22% increase over the same period in 2013, far outpacing overall U.S. market growth of 8%.
The Japanese company, which made the Zero fighter during WW2, has now posted 29 consecutive months of year-over-year growth and is already on its way to its sixth successive annual sales record. Subaru is also planning on selling its first hybrid and adding a full-size minivan to its U.S. production.
Subaru is now predicting that its global sales will exceed 1.1 million units in 2020, compared to 825,000 during the Japanese fiscal year that ended last March 31.
Toyota holds a 16.5% stake in Fuji Heavy Industries, which sells car under the Subaru brand. In jointly issued statements, the companies said they would continue to collaborate on products and technology. In the fall of 2016, Camry production will shift from the Indiana plant to a Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, and one with no debt, has just reported a net profit of 1.8 trillion yen – that’s $17.6 billion at current echange rates – for the Japanese Fiscal year that ended March 2014, a breathtaking increase of almost 90% year over year.
