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No, Toyota Australia isn't seriously considering setting up a breakaway brand for its petrol-electric models, but at the launch of the 2019 Toyota RAV4, the company has highlighted just how successful its current crop of hybrid models are.
Sean Hanley, director of sales and marketing at Toyota Australia, made the tongue-in-cheek reference to the company's hybrid line-up's success while outlining the strategy for hybrid variants of the new RAV4 mid-size SUV: six out of 11 variants in the range are hybrid-powered.
"I want you to hypothetically envisage this for a moment," he said of the notion of splitting Toyota hybrid models away from the brand's 'regular' line-up.
"Toyota hybrid-electric would be the 14th-largest automotive franchise in Australia right now, at [a predicted] 25,000 cars per year," said Mr Hanley.
"That's bigger than Audi. Bigger than BMW and Suzuki. Bigger than the combined sales of Alfa Romeo, Fiat, LDV, Mini, Peugeot, Porsche and Skoda," he said.
The new RAV4 hybrid models follow on from a broader introduction of petrol-electric models by Toyota locally, with the brand struggling to keep up with demand for the Camry hybrid and Corolla hybrid, both of which are selling in bigger ratios against their petrol-only counterparts than the company had expected.
Indeed, the brand recently celebrated the sale of its 100,000th hybrid model, and if projections are anything to go by, the one-millionth sale will occur considerably sooner than the 18 years it took to get to the recent milestone.
Toyota Australia expects the new RAV4 model will see a 40 per cent take-up rate for the hybrid versions this year, though Mr Hanley admits he "wouldn't be surprised if it's even higher than that".
And it could well be the case - the brand has announced aggressive pricing for the RAV4 range, and we'll be able to tell you how it drives soon. Stay tuned for our Toyota RAV4 2019 review in the coming week.
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