In times of global crisis in the sector, Toyota Rav4 – one of the top models of the Japanese company – has reached an important milestone.
Introduced in 1994 as one of the first compact all-wheel drive vehicles in the world, the SUV has recently exceeded 10 million units sold in its history, of which about two million in Europe, over 3 and a half million in last five years and 930,000 only in 2019. The annual sales of the model have almost tripled compared to those recorded in 2010 (358,000).
North America is by far its strongest market, with more than half a million annual sales (535,000 in 2019), followed by Europe (133,000) and China (127,000).
Also thanks to the introduction of the new (fifth) generation – with increasingly technological standard equipment starting at around €35,000 of base price – last year the RAV4 was the best-selling SUV on the global market and the third most bought car absolutely.
According to Focus2move data, only the Corolla family best seller (1.2 million) and the Ford F-150 pickup (just over a million) did better. The RAV4 is expected to grow further in 2020 with the arrival of an unprecedented plug-in hybrid variant (with rechargeable battery) which will support the pure hybrid version already on the market.
This growth benefited from the rapid spread of the SUV segment (including crossovers) which exceeded an average share of at least 30% in all the main global markets and 47% in the United States (60% included the pick-ups).
Just in North America , the RAV4 was the most successful with 535,000 cars delivered. In the USA, the Japanese SUV (448,068 units sold, + 5% compared to the previous year) is the third most bought car in 2019. In Europe, about 133,000 units of RAV4 were sold last year, 127,000 in China.
