Toyota welcomes new hybrid competition from Hyundai, Nissan, Kia, GWM Haval, and more

Toyota Australia was one of the first brands with a petrol-electric model more than two decades ago in the form of the Prius, but its dominance in the hybrid space might soon come under threat from fresh competition.

Rival brands including Hyundai, Nissan, GWM Haval, Kia, and Honda all now field competing hybrids that go up against the hot-selling Corolla, Corolla Cross, RAV4, Kluger, and Camry with fuel-saving technology of their own.

Speaking to Drive at the launch of the new C-HR, Toyota Australia sales and marketing boss Sean Hanley said the country’s biggest brand isn’t perturbed now it no longer has the hybrid market to itself.

“You know what they say, [the] more candles on the cake, the bigger the flame,” he said.

“It’s good because competition is good and, from an uninvested perspective, the consumer wins.

“Having more choice, more competition, is a good thing for our market and we don’t fear competitors, but we have to keep evolving and we have to keep bringing product to market that works for customers.”

Last year, 73.2 per cent of all hybrids sold – not counting plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) – wore a Toyota badge, tallying 72,084 examples.

As a whole, hybrids accounted for 33.5 per cent of Toyota’s 2023 total of 215,240 sales.

The RAV4 family SUV proved the most popular (25,666 sales), followed by the Corolla hatch and sedan (16,455), Camry mid-size sedan (9771), Kluger seven-seat SUV (6966), Corolla Cross small SUV (5734), and Yaris Cross city SUV (4387).

With these figures, Toyota models accounted for the top-six hybrid sales positions in 2023.

However, the RAV4 will face fresh competition from the Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson hybrids, the latter priced competitively against its Toyota rival and the latter due around mid-year alongside a model-wide update.

Haval also fields its H6 Hybrid in the competitive family SUV segment.

The three-variant Nissan X-Trail e-Power hybrid and flagship Honda CR-V e:HEV will also enter their first full 12 months on sale in Australia, hoping to steal sales from the in-demand RAV4.

Toyota has struggled with securing stock of the RAV4 hybrid over the past four years, with wait times blowing out to more than 24 months in some cases and prices creeping up due to added equipment, and the rising costs of logistics and production.

However, Toyota has stated the extended wait times are behind it, with the time between ordering and delivery planned to be as little as four months by the middle of the year.

Aside from the RAV4, interest in the Corolla sedan hybrid could also wane with the recent introduction of the Hyundai i30 Sedan Hybrid, while the new-generation Camry is expected to launch before the end of 2024, behind the new Honda Accord due by mid-year.

But the Corolla Cross will face the most competitors in the small SUV segment as hybrid versions the Nissan Qashqai and Hyundai Kona Hybrid join the fight, alongside the Haval Jolion and Honda HR-V.

At the other end of the size spectrum, Toyota’s Kluger hybrid will face renewed competition from the new-generation Hyundai Santa Fe due in the coming months, as well as the facelifted Kia Sorento.

Toyota Australia’s long-running hybrid play has paid off on the sales charts, and it is a strategy it will stick with for the foreseeable future.

“What we understand and what we learned from it was that new technology takes a certain amount of education before markets will accept it,” Mr Hanley said.

“Are we quietly pleased with the take-up of hybrid? Of course, we are.

“And the fact that others are now bringing hybrid and plug-in hybrid [models] in, suggests to us that our strategy wasn’t wrong, it isn’t wrong today, and I dare say, it won’t be wrong in the future.”

Toyota’s first hybrid in Australia was the second-generation Prius, which went on sale in October 2001, though it was beaten as the first mass-market hybrid by the Honda Insight which launched in mid-2001.