Sales of the San Antonio-made hybrid Sequoia dropped in April for the first time in six months, while sales for the hybrid Tundra jumped nearly 10%.
Toyota Motor Corp.’s sales tumbled 4.6% in April, marking the second consecutive month of declining sales.
The Japanese automaker sold 10,619 fewer vehicles last month compared with April 2025. The decline was largely driven by gas-powered vehicle sales plummeting 19%, with 98,381 gas-powered vehicles sold in April compared with 121,507 in the same period the year prior. But sales of electrified vehicles ramped up more than 10%, helping offset some of that drop.
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Year-over-year comparisons were affected in part by last spring’s tariff-fueled purchases, Cox Automotive pointed out, that created a temporary surge in sales. So while overall sales have declined compared with 2025, sales are relatively steady, especially given the current economic uncertainty, according to Cox Automotive.
“Surging gas prices and historically low consumer confidence haven’t crashed the vehicle market,” said Charlie Chesbrough, a senior economist for Cox Automotive. “Sales in April, as in March, were expected to decline from last year’s temporarily high levels, but they haven’t fallen as much as initially expected — thanks in part to strong tax refunds and healthy equity markets.”
Despite the overall dip, sales of the San Antonio-manufactured Tundra pickup — particularly, the electrified version — held strong. The hybrid pickup reported a 9.8% surge, with 2,948 trucks sold in April. That’s 263 more pickups than were sold in the prior April.
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Sales of the gas-powered Tundra inched forward, with less than 1% growth in April compared with the same month last year. The Japanese automaker finished out April with 45 more gas-powered trucks sold, for a total of 11,386 compared with 11,341 in April 2025.
Sales for electrified vehicles jumped 11.2% in April, with 12,507 more electrified vehicles sold compared with the year prior. That’s a significantly bigger increase than last month’s 0.9% increase in electrified vehicle sales. That surge comes as the Iran war has led to skyrocketing gas prices.
As of Monday, gas prices in Texas were 43% higher than they were a year ago, according to AAA Fuel Prices. It’s costing Texans on average $3.93 per gallon for regular gasoline, compared with $2.74 a year ago. The Associated Press reported in March that amid the rising gas prices, more people were researching electrified vehicles. Jessica Caldwell, head of insights for the automotive expert and sales platform Edmunds, said that rising gas prices affect at how people look at electric vehicles.
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“As we move forward and the weeks build up, we’ll start to see more people show interest, do research on electric vehicles, like we’ve seen in previous geopolitical conflicts,” Caldwell said at the time.
But the success of the electrified models sales did not extend to the San Antonio-made hybrid Sequoia, which saw a 7.1% decline in sales, for a total of 2,418 SUVs sold. The drop in sales breaks a half-year streak of consecutive growth for the electrified Sequoia — which saw sales surge 17% in March, 23.9% in February and 37.3% in January.
