Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk coupled on Sunday the ongoing banking crisis in the US as a reason for declining car sales.

What happened: Musk said US citizens have a harder time getting auto loans, even if they have good credit. The CEO was responding to a Twitter user who shared US sales numbers from Toyota Motor Corp TM Corolla cars.

According to data shared by the user, the Japanese automaker sold just 13,528 Corolla cars in the US in March 2023, its lowest sales figures since 2005. Corolla sales peaked in May 2008 when they reached 52,826 units.

Musk cited the ongoing banking crisis as the reason for the problem: “It’s understandable that banks are slow to lend when they’re trying to avoid bankruptcy themselves!”

Why it matters: Toyota was the most valuable car brand in the world last year, according to a report by Brand Finance. But this year Tesla has overtaken Toyota with a brand value of 66.2 billion US dollars.

Toyota took second place with a brand value of $52.5 billion. This was reported in November Tesla earns 8x more profit per vehicle than Toyota despite its position as the industry leader in terms of volume.

Last month, Toyota a 9.1% decline in US sales in March to 176,456 vehicles. For the first quarter, Toyota Motor North America reported unit sales of 469,558 vehicles, down 8.8 percent year-on-year.

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Continue reading: Rival Tesla China surges ahead as April sales grow six-fold to over 25,000 EVs