The Toyota RAV4 is one of the best-selling vehicles in the country, but the automaker has struggled to deliver enough to meet demand. Dealers are seeing ballooning wait lists after Toyota slowed production output to retool its factories for the recently redesigned SUV.
Industry publication Automotive News reported that Toyota dealers are selling the new 2026 RAV4 models as soon as they hit the lot. Damon Rose, Toyota North America’s VP of sales, said, “It’s so hot, we’re counting inventory in hours’ supply right now, not days. Our turn rate was 97.6% last month – that means 97.6% of RAV4s available for sale in May were sold.”
Toyota expected the updated RAV4, a Kelley Blue Book Best Buy winner for 2026, to be in short supply, warning dealers late last year. Production kicked off in Japan last December and in Canada in January, but it took a couple of months for the first units to reach dealers’ lots.
The company also builds the RAV4 at its Georgetown, Kentucky, plant, where the Camry Hybrid is built. While most of the United States’ supply will come from Canada, the Kentucky facility is expected to add 40,000 RAV4 units this year, with an expansion planned for 2027.
The retooling process at those factories was part of the slow rollout, but Toyota also pushed back the start of 2026 model-year production to get as many 2025 models out the door as possible, with the idea that an ample supply of the outgoing model would hold dealers over until there were enough 2026 RAV4 units to go around.
That strategy has come with some consequences. RAV4 sales are down around 40% through May 2026, and they’re expected to finish the year down tens of thousands of units. The upside for Toyota is that the shortage has led dealers to offer alternate models to the RAV4, increasing sales of the bZ electric crossover, the 4Runner, Corolla Cross, and others.
