Toyota’s ‘Invisible’ Fleet Sales Reappear

If Toyota GB’s company car sales appear to have plummeted this year, analysts should not leap to any premature conclusions. The apparently dramatic about-turn is simply the result of an incorrect computer setting which has rendered the sales temporarily invisible.

Since mid-July, details of most of Toyota’s fleet sales have been supplied to the DVLA by dealers in mainland Britain using the Automated First Registration & Licensing (AFRL) system. The switch followed a pilot scheme that began in May. However, due to a computer glitch, which has since been corrected, all the vehicles were originally identified as individual retail, rather than fleet sales on the system.

The problem was identified during September, when the high volumes of new-registration fleet sales failed to appear in the regular reports put out by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Company car sales are now being reported correctly to the DVLA, but the SMMT’s reports will continue to reflect the discrepancy until November. This, says the society, is the earliest date by which the necessary corrections can be made.

Toyota Fleet estimates that company car sales of around 4,500 in the year to date have been reported as retail sales due to the computer error.

ENDS