Toyota RAV4 passes massive sales milestone in Australia

The Toyota RAV4 has joined the Corolla, HiLux, LandCruiser and Camry in notching over 500,000 sales on the Australian market.

Toyota has now sold 501,546 RAV4s in Australia from its market launch in July 1994 to the end of June 2024.

In serendipitous timing, the milestone comes as Toyota celebrates 30 years of the RAV4.

It still has a while to go to match the Corolla, HiLux, LandCruiser and Camry, older nameplates which have blown past not only the 500,000 sales mark but also the million sales mark.

However, Toyota says the RAV4 is the only vehicle in its segment to reach this sales milestone, and its sales growth has been enormous – particularly in recent years.

It took more than 11 years for Toyota to reach the first 100,000 RAV4 sales and more than 21 years to reach 250,000 sales, but it then took just nine additional years to reach the 500,000 mark.

The past five years have been the RAV4’s best sales years on our market, and Toyota says it’s on track to set another record this year.

That’s despite Toyota recently closing orders for petrol-powered models… not that that will dent the RAV4, given hybrids have accounted for 94.2 per cent of its sales this year.

Toyota says the RAV4 enjoys the distinction of being the only SUV to become Australia’s best-selling vehicle, which it accomplished in July 2020.

The following month, its hybrid sales alone outsold every other vehicle available in Australia.

Petrol-powered models are the latest RAV4s to be axed.

Launched with a three-door body style, this lasted just two generations and was axed in 2006.

A convertible version was introduced in 1998 but dropped in 2000, a V6 version came with the third generation in 2007 but was axed when the fourth generation came in 2013, and a diesel was offered only from 2013 to 2018.

More recently in 2022, Toyota Australia axed the option of a manual transmission.

MORE: Everything Toyota RAV4