- RAV4 supply issues are causing headaches for Toyota and its dealers.
- Dealers have long, supercar-style waiting lists for the hybrid-only SUV.
- Despite inventory problems, Toyota’s US sales are up this year overall.
Months after we first reported that dealers were measuring RAV4 supplies in hours rather than days, the situation still hasn’t returned to normal. Some customers are waiting months for Toyota’s redesigned hybrid SUV, while dealers are staring at spaces where shiny new RAV4s should be sitting.
CNBC visited Colonial Toyota in Milford, Connecticut, where owner Bobby Crabtree said his lot has room for another 250 vehicles and is currently only around one-third full. Not every empty spot would normally contain a RAV4, but there ought to be more of them, and Crabtree would certainly like more.
Read: Toyota Admits The New RAV4 Went Too Far On Screens, And Even China Agrees
Customers Nancy and Ira Berman know the problem from the other side of the salesman’s desk. They ordered their RAV4 in March and are only now preparing to take delivery, six months later.
“The wait was a slight annoyance,” Nancy Berman told CNBC, adding that the couple already had other Toyotas they could drive in the meantime.
Toyota openly admitted that supplies would initially be tight when it launched the latest RAV4. The redesigned crossover went hybrid-only in America, with the initial supply coming from Japan and Canada due to factory retooling at the Kentucky plant, and those Japanese exports were also hurt by the conflict in the Middle East.
Kentucky Is On The Case
Kentucky is now churning out RAVs too, but the gradual production ramp-up meant dealers weren’t going to receive their usual volumes straight away, and Toyota is still playing catchup with runaway demand.
We’ve been watching the squeeze for months. Earlier this summer, some dealers were measuring RAV4 inventory in hours, while one California Toyota store reportedly had more than 800 customers waiting. The tight inventory has cost Toyota tens of thousands of potential RAV4 sales this year.
But customers still want them, even if they have to wait, because America loves its RAV4s. Almost 480,000 were sold in the US last year, making Toyota’s crossover the country’s third best-selling vehicle behind only the Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado. And a move to hybrid-only power at a time when gas prices have skyrocketed looks well timed. Hybrids account for more than 18 percent of US new-vehicle sales this year, according to JD Power.
