Toyota RAV4 sales down 36% due to factory retooling, not weak demand

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Sales of the Toyota RAV4 have fallen almost 36 percent so far this year.

Factory retooling measures and production cuts have hurt the popular SUV.

Total sales for Toyota are up 1.5 percent this year, but Lexus sales have dropped.

Plenty of Toyota models have posted exceptionally strong sales this year, the discontinued GR Supra among them, but the picture isn’t uniform across the range. The RAV4 stands out as the clear exception, though there’s a reasonable explanation for why it’s lagging.

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Toyota pulled the covers off the all-new RAV4 a little over 12 months ago. It remains the best-selling vehicle in the current lineup, yet sales have slid sharply this year, back when the outgoing model was still on lots.

Read: Toyota Killed The GR Supra And Sales Jumped 72% This Year

Through the first six months of 2025, Toyota moved 239,451 RAV4s. This year, that number has fallen 35.7 percent to 153,955. June alone kept the slide going, with sales down 12.1 percent from 36,810 units to 32,350. What makes the decline unusual is that none of it can be traced to weak demand. Buyers still want it.

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The conflict in Iran and issues at the Strait of Hormuz have hurt Toyota. It recently revealed it will cut overseas production by roughly 100,000 units through February 2027, and those reductions, stacked on top of retooling delays for the changeover at the Kentucky plant that builds the RAV4, have already cost the company around 55,000 units in lost sales.

Staggered changeovers at plants in Japan and North America squeezed supply for months, even as hybrid production climbs at Georgetown, Kentucky. RAV4 output fell by roughly 86,400 units between January and May against the same period last year, according to AutoForecast Solutions data cited by Automotive News. With dealers scrambling to keep the SUV in stock, some are now counting their inventory in hours rather than days.

What About Other Toyota Models?

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Several other Toyota models have had rough starts to the year. For example, GR 86 sales are down 26.2 percent to 4,007 through the first half. Prius volume has collapsed 42.3 percent to 19,519 units, while the Land Cruiser sits 40 percent lower over the same stretch. Even with those weak spots, total Toyota brand sales in the US are up 1.5 percent in the first half of the year and 11.2 percent in June.

The Lexus brand is struggling, however. Its sales through the first half were down 5.2 percent, though they jumped 3.9 percent in June. The half-year decline came mostly from a 70.6 percent fall in RC sales, a 79.7 percent drop for the ES, a 78.9 percent tumble for the LS, and 12.8 percent fewer LC models finding new homes. The only model to buck the trend was the IS, up 42.7 percent this year to 14,071.

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