Toyota Australia said it would no longer sell petrol only variants of RAV4 and all other models where hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are available.
The move means that Corolla and Camry sedans and the Corolla Cross, RAV4 and Kluger SUVs are now only HEV for customer orders.
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This expands Toyota’s Australian HEV only family to nine models, joining Yaris Cross SUV, Corolla and Yaris hatches, and the C-HR SUV. GR models continue unchanged as they are not offered with a hybrid alternative.
Toyota head of sales, marketing and franchise operations Sean Hanley said this would accelerate a sales trend that has seen hybrid sales at record levels.
“Toyota has been implementing our HEV strategy over an extended period and remains committed to innovating across a diverse array of powertrains, which is the essence of our multi-pathway approach to decarbonisation,” he said.
“This approach was central to global decisions, made in the earliest planning stages, that the 2024 new-generation C-HR and Camry models would be offered exclusively with hybrid powertrains.
“Around the same time, consumer demand in Australia for hybrid models was rising consistently, including in 2020 when our overall hybrid share near doubled to more than one quarter of our total sales and it has continued to grow ever since.
“Faced with this surging demand, we were confident in the future of HEV as the dominant powertrain of choice for most passenger cars and SUVs, which led us to make decisions that would ultimately impact on sales of petrol only models.”
He added: “Our HEV share reached a record 33.5% last year and has jumped to 46.6% in the first five months of this year, including 48.9% in May.”
