In brief: Toyota sold 253,664 RAV4s in the US through September, down 29% from a year earlier, because it can’t yet build enough of the redesigned model.
Implications:
Volume: RAV4 builds are back above 30,000 a month across Toyota’s Ontario and Kentucky plants.
Kentucky: Georgetown is set to build about 80,000 RAV4s in 2027, double this year, while a threatened 50% US tariff on Canadian-built cars hangs over Ontario.
Changeover: Toyota kept building the old RAV4 into late 2025 and started the new one in Canada in January, and the first units took a couple of months to reach dealers.
The News
Toyota sold 253,664 RAV4s in the US through September, down 29.2% from 358,134 a year earlier, according to the company’s third-quarter sales report.
The shortfall comes from supply rather than demand. Toyota continued building the 2025 RAV4 into late 2025, delaying the retooling of its plants for the redesigned model. North American RAV4 production fell 30% through September, and dealers are selling new arrivals almost at once. The RAV4 had just 24 days of supply in September, compared with 82 days for the industry, according to Cox Automotive.
Output is now catching up. Toyota’s two Ontario plants and its Georgetown, Kentucky, plant build more than 30,000 RAV4s a month, and September sales were down 6.6%, a far smaller gap than the drop for the year.
Why It Matters
Toyota’s sales figures show the shortfall came almost entirely from the gas RAV4 it stopped building, which hybrids have only partly replaced.
Gas version gone: Gas RAV4 sales fell to about 21,000 through September from about 202,000 a year earlier, because the new model is sold only as a hybrid or plug-in hybrid.
Hybrids up, not enough: RAV4 Hybrid sales rose 43.6% to 200,209 and plug-in sales rose 92.1% to 32,228, which made up about 76,000 of the roughly 181,000 gas sales lost.
Buyers moved within Toyota: Toyota told dealers to steer RAV4 shoppers to other models, and the 4Runner rose 61.2% and the Corolla Cross 22.9%, which left Toyota Motor North America’s total sales up 0.6%.
The Ripple
The redesign is also changing where the RAV4 is built and what feeds it.
More Kentucky: Georgetown is set to add about 40,000 RAV4s this year and about 80,000 in 2027, next to roughly 350,000 a year from Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario, according to Toyota’s plans.
A new battery flow: Battery modules from Toyota’s North Carolina plant now go to packs assembled at the Ontario plants, a step those plants didn’t do before the hybrid-only model.
Tariff risk on Ontario: The US has threatened a 50% tariff on Canadian-built cars and parts from Jan 1, up from 25%, and talks remain frozen. US-built vehicles would not pay it, and the 50% duties already in force on other Canadian goods don’t cover cars.
Last Time
Ford, 2014: Dealers stocked up on the old F-150 before Ford shut its Dearborn plant to retool, and Kansas City kept building the old truck through the end of the year while Dearborn started the new one, so the two plants switched at different times. Ford still expected to lose about 90,000 trucks of output.
Tesla, 2025: Changing Model Y lines at all four of its factories at once “led to the loss of several weeks of production” in the first quarter, Tesla said, and its deliveries fell 13% that quarter.
Constellation Brands, 2026: Modelo’s maker spent six months restocking distributors after running their inventory too lean.
Room for Disagreement
Toyota’s overall sales held up. The company’s total US sales rose 0.6% through September despite 104,470 fewer RAV4s. “With solid momentum and disciplined inventory heading into Q4, we’re well-positioned to finish the year strong,” Andrew Gilleland, senior vice president of Toyota’s automotive operations group, said in the sales release.
Notable
Kelley Blue Book has Damon Rose, Toyota’s North America sales chief, saying Toyota was counting RAV4 inventory “in hours’ supply” in the spring, with 97.6% of available RAV4s sold in May.
What’s Next
Early Nov: Toyota’s October US sales show whether the RAV4 gap keeps shrinking from September’s 6.6%.
Jan 1: The threatened 50% US tariff on Canadian-built cars and parts would start.
2027: Georgetown is expected to build about 80,000 RAV4s.
