- the toyota rav4 hybrid sold 92,525 units in 2019, beating out the toyota prius, which sold 69,718 units.
- this makes the rav4 hybrid toyota's best-selling hybrid overall so far this year, and the hybrid model is making up around 21 percent of overall rav4 sales.
- the camry hybrid is next in the rankings, at 26,043 units, and the highlander hybrid sold 18,248 units in 2019.
update 1/3/20: year-end sales numbers are in, and the rav4 has extended its lead over the prius. we have updated this story with full-year 2019 numbers.
the rav4 has already surpassed the camry as toyota's best-selling model, and now its hybrid variant has dethroned another iconic toyota top seller: the prius. through 2019, the rav4 hybrid sold more units than the entire toyota prius lineup, and by a wide margin, at 92,525 units to 69,718 units.
this makes the rav4 hybrid toyota's best-selling hybrid overall, and it made up around 21 percent of all rav4 sales in 2019. the rav4, fresh off a redesign for the 2019 model year, sold 448,071 units overall, a 5 percent increase over last year.
prius sales, meanwhile, have been taking a sharp nosedive. the hybrid hatchback is down 20 percent over last year, despite an update for 2019 that includes a new option for all-wheel drive.
the fact that the rav4 is getting closer and closer to the prius in fuel economy is surely a factor. while the new rav4 hybrid model's 40-mpg epa combined rating is still a far cry from the prius's 50-to-56-mpg rating, it is a huge improvement over its predecessor's 32-mpg combined rating. in our testing, a 2019 rav4 hybrid limited achieved 32 mpg overall and 37 mpg on our 75-mph highway fuel-economy test, while a 2019 prius xle e-awd hit 44 mpg and 47 mpg in those same metrics.
this story was originally published in july 2019.