The Toyota RAV4 is selling like hotcakes, setting a sixth consecutive monthly sales record, and it could overtake its HiLux ute stablemate and the Ford Ranger to be Australia’s best-selling vehicle this year.
In August, Toyota delivered 6712 RAV4s to Australian customers, beating its previous single-month record of 5933 deliveries – set just one month earlier in July.
Only one Toyota has delivered a bigger month than that: the HiLux, which in June 2022 recorded 7582 deliveries.
It’s the third time this year Toyota’s SUV has beaten the Ranger and HiLux to the top of the sales charts, and only the fifth time it has ever topped the charts in Australia overall during its 30-year history.
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Of those 6712 deliveries in August, 6342 were RAV4 hybrids, enough to push electrified examples of the popular SUV to a record on their own.
Just eight months into 2024, Toyota has delivered 38,050 examples of the SUV, putting it within 5827 deliveries of the Ranger (43,877) and 292 ahead of the HiLux (37,758).
It could be a record year for RAV4 deliveries, as Toyota managed a high of 38,537 new registrations in 2020 before its Japanese production line was forced to throttle back, resulting in 35,751 deliveries in 2021, 34,845 in 2022, and 29,627 in 2023.
To the end of August in that record year, Toyota had delivered 24,678 RAV4s, with this year’s tally already 64.9 per cent higher.
This boom in deliveries comes off the back of more than three years of production constraints, largely driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wait times for the SUV reached highs of up to 24 months for top-spec hybrid variants, though with these constraints now overcome, customers are able to receive their vehicles within four months of ordering.
Despite the deliveries rush reflecting the fulfilment of long-standing orders, Toyota believes the RAV4 could still run down the utes for the top spot.
“Now, you’ll be thinking that some of this volume is catch-up, and you’d be right,” said Sean Hanley, Toyota Australia vice president for sales, marketing and franchise operations.
“But let me tell you three things about these numbers. One: the average wait time for RAV4 is now under four months – and getting shorter.”
“Two: the stock keeps coming. And three: Our order intake remains strong.”
If the Toyota RAV4 does become the best-selling vehicle in Australia this year, it’ll mark the first time since 2015 that a ute hasn’t taken the top spot.
Then it was the Toyota Corolla, which narrowly lost its lead to the HiLux and never recovered, with the formidable ute subsequently remaining on top until 2023 when it was dethroned by the Ford Ranger.
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