- US Toyota dealers report overwhelming demand despite limited US RAV4 availability.
- Kentucky production aims to boost supply, though shortages won’t go away.
- Hundreds of buyers are still waiting while inventory disappears almost immediately.
If you’ve been trying to buy a new Toyota RAV4 lately and struggling to land a deal, you’re not the only one. The redesigned SUV is proving so popular that some dealers have hundreds of customers waiting for deliveries, while others are watching incoming inventory disappear before vehicles even arrive on their lots.
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Toyota is now taking steps to ease the crunch by building the 2026 RAV4 in the United States. Production began this month at the company’s Georgetown, Kentucky, factory, adding extra capacity as demand continues to outstrip supply. Even so, don’t expect dealer lots to suddenly fill up with unsold RAV4s.
Longo Toyota in California has more than 800 customers waiting for the new model despite delivering over 200 examples during May, Automotive News reports. In Florida, Earl Stewart Toyota reportedly sold every available incoming RAV4 allocation before customers could even see them in person.
Toyota executives say the shortage is largely self-inflicted. The company spent months converting factories in Japan and Canada to build the redesigned hybrid-only RAV4, temporarily restricting production while preparing for the launch. That careful rollout has helped ensure quality, but it has also left dealers with very little inventory to work with.
“It’s so hot, we’re counting inventory in hours’ supply right now, not days,” Toyota division sales chief Damon Rose told Automotive News. “Our turn rate was 97.6 percent last month.”
Massive Testing Program
To help smooth the launch, Toyota reportedly sent early-production vehicles around the country for extensive real-world testing before ramping up volume production. Rose said the company accumulated more than 700,000 miles (1,130,000 km) of driving in a variety of conditions before the model reached customers.
That might have helped weed out any niggles, but it didn’t fundamentally alter some of the RAV4’s big downsides based on our own experience with it, which include a noisy powertrain and low-rent interior. The latest RAV is a better SUV than the old one, but it’s not perfect.
Not that those negatives seem to be putting Toyota customers off. Even with Kentucky production now underway, the automaker reportedly expects RAV4 sales to finish the year well below potential simply because there aren’t enough vehicles available. That’s not a problem most manufacturers would mind having, but it’s still a problem.
