Toyota Ramps up Production of the New RAV4 in Kentucky to Meet U.S. Demand

• The RAV4 is being manufactured in three countries.

• Most RAV4s sold in the United States will still come from Canada.

• Sales of the popular SUV are down 40% due to short supplies, but almost every one is pre-sold.

After Takaoka, Japan, and Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, Toyota is ramping up production of the new 2026 RAV4 in Georgetown, Kentucky.

Indeed, the automaker’s largest factory in the world is now also manufacturing the new generation of the brand’s best-selling model in order to meet “overwhelming” demand.

The Kentucky plant is the only production location for the North American-market Camry and has manufactured hybrid versions of the RAV4 since 2020. The newest generation of the RAV4, launched early this year, only features hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains.

While most RAV4s sold in North America will continue to be manufactured in Canada, the Cambridge and Woodstock plants are reportedly already operating at capacity and aren’t able to meet demand.

Once fully ramped up, the Georgetown factory should add 40,000 RAV4s this year and around 80,000 in 2027, helping Toyota reduce its waitlist and stock up its dealership’s lots.

At the moment, Automotive News reports that almost every new RAV4 is sold before it is built, with the crossover’s turnover rate being 97.6 % in May, meaning that 97.6 of all RAV4s offered for sale in the United States during that month were sold before June began.

Demand is so strong that high-volume dealers are even calculating their inventories in terms of hours rather than days. Some also have waiting lists that are 800 names deep.

Customer interest in a new generation of North America’s most popular SUV is obviously an important factor in this shortage of RAV4s, but its not the only one.

Indeed, Toyota favoured a slow ramp-up for the production of the 2026 RAV4 in order to make sure the new model won’t have too many teething troubles, which often happen at the start of the production run of a new model.

This explains why sales of the RAV4 in the United States are currently down 40% through May over the same period last year, despite all of the outstanding orders.

The automaker also sent 150 prototypes and early-production units to technical specialists and dealerships across the country and asked them to put them through their paces in order to catch anything the engineers might have missed during the regular development process.

Even with the added production capacity in Georgetown, Toyota is unlikely to catch up before the end of the year, especially now that the plug-in hybrid version is now available across the entire United States rather than in a select few states with strict Zero-Emission vehicle mandates.

To make up for these sales that risk being lost, Toyota has reportedly asked its dealerships to offer other models like the Crown Signia, Corolla Cross, 4Runner, and even the electric bZ and the Tacoma pickup to those who are interested in a RAV4.

This strategy could be working, as sales of all of these models are up anywhere from 0.6 to 114% year over year.

From a Canadian perspective, increasing production of the RAV4 in Georgetown is worrying when we consider the trade tensions between Ottawa and Washington, but given the demand for the RAV4 and the fact that two Canadian plants manufacture about 350,000 RAV4s per year compared to the high of 80,000 expected from Georgetown, the automaker’s manufacturing presence in Canada seems safe for now.

Source: Automotive News