Toyota’s hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and battery-electric vehicles should push the brand past 500,000 units this year in the American market.
Follow us today...
Like all manufacturers’, Toyota’s business has been impacted by shortages during this very unusual period. However, the company continues to deliver more fuel-efficient and affordable cars, trucks, and SUVs than any other brand. Lexus is also having a strong year, with two of its most important green models growing in sales, and the just-released RX plug-in hybrid adding volume to an already long list of models the premium brand provides.
Breaking Down Toyota’s Electrified Winners For 2022 Year To Date
The biggest positive is the Toyota RAV4 hybrid-electric SUV. Toyota has already delivered over 124,000 RAV4 Hybrid vehicles, up a whopping 50% year over year. The RAV4 Hybrid is far and away the most popular affordable green SUV in America today. In fact, it outsells the combined volume of all of its competitors. Honda aims to come on strong with its CR-V Hybrid in 2023, and we look forward to reporting a change in volume for that model.
The Surprise Hybrid Truck
The Tundra Hybrid is also a surprise success. Toyota’s Hybrid Tundra September deliveries topped 2,000 units. Only Ford and Toyota offer a hybrid full-size pickup in America today.
Lexus Brand Model Details
At the Lexus brand, the new RX PHEV is adding just a couple hundred units per month to the delivery mix, but these augment the Plug-in Prius and RAV4 models already being provided by Toyota.
The Lexus ES Hybrid and RX Hybrid are both up for the year, and the NX Hybrid is maintaining a pace of over 1,000 units per month. Overall, Lexus electrified vehicles have made up roughly 10% of Toyota’s total of nearly 400,000 electrified vehicles delivered thus far in 2022.
Projected Toyota Electrified Vehicle Sales 2022
We extrapolated Toyota’s full-year sales of electrified vehicles for 2022 by averaging the company’s year-to-date deliveries of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and the 232 bz4X battery-electric vehicles the company has sold thus far in 2022 to come out with our total guestimate of 504,000 units. Check back in three months to see how Toyota ends its delivery year.
John Goreham is a long-time New England Motor Press Association member and recovering engineer. John's interest in EVs goes back to 1990 when he designed the thermal control system for an EV battery as part of an academic team. After earning his mechanical engineering degree, John completed a marketing program at Northeastern University and worked with automotive component manufacturers, in the semiconductor industry, and in biotech. In addition to Torque News, John's work has appeared in print in dozens of American news outlets and he provides reviews to many vehicle shopping sites. You can follow John on TikTok @ToknCars, on Twitter, and view his credentials at Linkedin
Re-Publication. If you wish to re-use this content, please contact Torque News for terms and conditions.
Image of 2022 RAV4 Prime and RAV4 Hybrid by Kate Silbaugh
Follow us today...
Toyota is doing well with
Toyota is doing well with expanding their "electrified" vehicles, but they are doing poorly with their BEVs (battery-only EVs). Their one U.S. BEV the bZ4X was recalled because the wheels could fall off. In its letter sent to owners, Toyota offered a wide range of options, including paying for storage of the bZ4X, providing a loaner vehicle, the cost of fuel to operate the loaner, and even offering a credit of up to $55,000 to take back the car if owners had paid it off. Toyota is no longer selling the bZ4X (or any other BEV) until they first figure out how to fix the safety issue. Meanwhile, Toyota's president said that California's plans to ban gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 is "difficult" to achieve due to slow electric cars adoption rate. Maybe he missed the point that Tesla's total sales (customer deliveries) for 2022 amounted to 343,830 (up 42% year-over-year), which is a new all-time record for Tesla. This is admittedly less than Toyota's electrified vehicle sales, but not by all that much. And effectively Toyota has zero BEV sales in the U.S. now that the bz4X has been recalled.
Such a misleading headline.
Such a misleading headline. Most folks don't know that "Electrified" means a gas burning hybrid.