According to research conducted by Carloop.com.au, analysing 50,000 hybrid car sales in Australia from 2019 to 2021, sales of the Toyota RAV4 hybrid electric/petrol vehicle increased by 39 per cent year on year in 2021 compared to 2019 despite the global pandemic and semi-conductor shortage.
This eclipsed the sales figures of the petrol variant: 4,626 petrol models versus 8,211 hybrid models in 2020, followed by 3492 petrol v 6791 hybrid models in 2021. While sales dipped in 2021 hybrid RAV4s, as a percentage, increased to 66%.
Carloop looked at a random selection of 50,000 hybrid cars sold in Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic. Of the 50,000, 46,282 were Toyota hybrids. Carloop obtains data from multiple sources, including vehicle registration, internal consumer trends research, as well as crowd sourced data.
The far and away leader in hybrid sales is Toyota, claiming 92% of the market, followed by Mitsubishi on 3%, Hyundai on 2%, and Subaru on 1%. Of the 46,282 vehicles sold by Toyota, Toyota Corolla hybrid sales totalled 28,220 (61%), RAV4s 17,094 (37%), while the Kluger hybrid sold 968 (2%).
Not only has the RAV4 become the most popular SUV sold in Australia, but the hybrid version became the most popular type of RAV4 sold in 2020 with the trend continuing into 2021 and projected to continue into 2022.
Current Australian new car sales buck world trends. There is a current global new car sale slump of 14%, a US sales dip of 15.83% (2019 vs 2020) and UK sales contraction of 27% (2019 vs 2020.) By contrast, Australian car sales have surged 33% year on year (October 2020 to 2021) according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.