Suddenly, Toyota is looking like the juggernaut of old -- a warning to rivals that the window of opportunity for stealing market share from the former No. 1 brand may have snapped shut.

With its inventory levels all but normal again, Toyota Motor's sales were up 12 percent in April, well above the industry's 2 percent gain.

"The consumer is back for Toyota," said AutoNation COO Mike Maroone. "That's more important than Toyota getting product back."

But it's a different story at Honda. While its bigger rival shakes off two years of turmoil, Honda is still struggling, still trying to rebound from the March 2011 earthquake in Japan and a disappointing response to some of its new models last year.

"Toyota is back, and all the way back in just four months," said TrueCar.com analyst Jesse Toprak. "Meanwhile, Honda may be discovering that some of its 2011 losses are permanent."

Toyota Motor and Chrysler Group, which was up 20 percent, were the only major groups to outperform the U.S. market's 2 percent sales gain in April. Hyundai-Kia eked out a 1 percent increase, and Nissan North America was flat. Ford Motor Co. was down 5 percent, and General Motors dropped 8 percent.

But sales of 1.2 million light vehicles kept the seasonally adjusted annual selling rate at 14.4 million, the same as March and the fourth straight month above 14 million.

How did Toyota get its customers back so quickly?

Not only did it restock; it rearmed with a redesigned Camry and other new models. And with the demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles, Prius sales surged 102 percent in April and are up 56 percent for the year.

Meanwhile, sales of Honda's most fuel-efficient cars are lagging, even with gasoline not far below $4 a gallon.

Toyota also was a bit faster than Honda in restoring its global production and resupplying U.S. dealers. Still, Maroone said, Honda has plenty of vehicles to sell.

Toyota has closed the gap with the U.S. sales leaders. In April, Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. pulled within 2,000 units of No. 2 Ford Motor and 36,000 units of No. 1 GM.

Among brands, Toyota Division, up 14 percent over last year, finished only 500 units behind No. 2 Chevrolet and 18,000 behind No. 1 Ford. Among the five top-selling brands, only Toyota improved over April 2011.

American Honda fell 2 percent compared with April 2011, its 10th year-on-year decline in 12 months. The group's 9.5 percent market share in the first four months of 2012 was 0.8 percentage points below the same period last year.

Honda executives say the year-on-year comparisons are somewhat skewed. Last April, the Honda brand was up 10 percent, and Acura rose 8 percent as customers anticipated that the quake would soon cause a shortage of vehicles.

'More volume out there'

Bob Carter: More volume is on the way.

Still, Toyota Motor Sales is rebuilding market share faster than American Honda. Toyota's 15.0 percent share in April was 4.5 points higher than last June, when supplies bottomed out. Honda was up 2.3 points since then to 10.3 percent in April.

"Any way you look at it, Toyota, Lexus and Scion dealers outperformed the industry," said Toyota brand boss Bob Carter. "April was an excellent month for Toyota and a good month for the industry.

"If we had more Priuses and Camrys, there's a little more volume out there," Carter said. "We are ordering more Camrys and [the factory] is able to build them. We are adding overall volume."

And the trouble Toyota had conquesting buyers after the 2010 unintended acceleration crisis appears to have dissipated. Maroone said: "For a while, it was loyal Toyota customers that carried sales. Now they're attracting new customers."

With supplies back and buyers proving their loyalty to the brand, prospects change for competitors.

"The pressure now mounts on everybody who has benefited from Toyota being short of product," said LMC Automotive forecaster Jeff Schuster. "That starts with Volkswagen and Hyundai-Kia who have their own inventory pressure. It's Nissan and General Motors and Ford until it adds the [new] Fusion. But you can call it every major player. It certainly does heat up the competition."

Don Johnson, GM's U.S. sales chief, said: "There's no doubt the Japanese are back in the market. They have a high inventory. They're being particularly aggressive in the fleet business. But we're going to maintain our competitiveness in the market."

Boosting incentives
Toyota is not all the way back. It is still well short of its peak 17 percent share in 2009 before the unintended-acceleration controversy hurt its image. To regain ground, both Toyota and Honda have boosted incentives substantially.

Just three years ago the two had the lowest incentives in the industry. Last month, Honda spent $2,398 per vehicle, $48 below the industry average. And while Toyota's April incentives were about $50 lower than last year, its $1,823 average was $600 higher than Hyundai-Kia's.

And Toyota will keep the pressure on. It started May with an incentives push: 0 percent financing on its seven best-selling models and special lease rates on "nearly every model in our lineup," Carter said.

Meanwhile, Toyota is boosting capacity at its 14 North American plants.

Toyota has boosted fleet sales to "an untypical high" 15 percent of its U.S. sales mix so far this year, Carter said, rather than its normal 8 to 9 percent.

Toyota says it is supplying fleet buyers after it diverted sales to retail during the shortage last year and it will continue the fleet emphasis in May.

Honda can't match that. It lets dealers handle all fleet sales. Most industry insiders estimate fleet at a flat 2 percent of Honda overall sales.

Both Toyota and Honda have problem areas in their lineups.

While Camry and Prius hybrid sales are strong, Toyota Corolla volume is down 8 percent this year, and that will continue until production ramps up at the new Tupelo, Miss., plant. Sales of the Tundra pickup also are down.

At Honda, the redesigned CR-V is up 24 percent through April, replacing the outgoing Accord sedan as the brand's top seller, 98,214 to 96,517. But Honda's fuel-sippers haven't benefited much from the high price of gasoline. So far the Fit small car is down 33 percent, the CR-Z coupe is off 69 percent, and Insight hybrid is down 65 percent. Civic sales fell 9 percent in April.

Spokesman Chuck Schifsky concedes that Honda is not all the way back.

"Dealers don't have the selection they want yet," he said. "They may be short on hot products, such as the CR-V. Production is back to normal but getting dealers back to normal may take a little longer. We're fairly happy but it's a work in progress."



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