CAMBRIDGE — Major upgrades at Toyota assembly plants in Cambridge and Woodstock to build the redesigned RAV4 sport utility vehicle are paying off for Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada.

According to statistics provided by the Global Automakers of Canada, Toyota sold 65,248 RAV4s in Canada in 2019 — nearly 18 per cent more than the 55,385 sold in 2018 — making it the bestselling vehicle in Canada last year that wasn't a pickup truck.

"Our production planning and forecasting for RAV4 was always going to be strong," said Scott MacKenzie, senior national manager of external affairs for Toyota. "We're not really surprised by the numbers, to be honest."

RAV4 assembly at the two Ontario plants was made possible thanks to a $1.4 billion investment from the company, first announced in May 2018. It included $110 million apiece from the federal and provincial governments, and production officially began last year after Cambridge wrapped up assembly of the Corolla in February.

The upgrades helped create about 450 new jobs, bringing total employment at the two plants to about 8,500, MacKenzie said.

The roughly 65,000 RAV4s Toyota sold last year made it the third-bestselling vehicle in Canada after the Dodge Ram truck (96,763) and Ford F-series of trucks (145,064). It even outsold the popular Honda Civic (60,139) and Corolla (47,596).

Almost one-in-three Toyota vehicles sold in Canada last year was a RAV4, and total Toyota vehicle sales (211,551) climbed 1.9 per cent compared to 2018 — mostly on the strength of the compact SUV's performance.

Overall light vehicle sales in Canada dropped 3.6 per cent last year to about 1.9 million vehicles.

The Cambridge plant builds the gas version of the RAV4 and Woodstock builds gas and hybrid versions. The two plants combined to build an estimated 350,000 RAV4s last year for the North American market, with about 131,000 of those coming out of Cambridge, MacKenzie said.

While overall sales of the RAV4 were strong, Toyota saw particularly good performance from the hybrid edition. About 22 per cent of the RAV4s sold in Canada last year, or close to 14,500 units, were gas-electric hybrids.

"And that was only in about nine months of production. We didn't come online with the hybrid until March," MacKenzie said.

The RAV4 hybrid has a self-charging battery and Toyota is preparing to roll out a plug-in electric version this year, known as the RAV4 Prime. Most of those vehicles will be built in Japan, the company said.

Hybrid RAV4 sales alone put it ahead of total vehicle sales for many of its competitors, including the Subaru Forester (13,059), Subaru Outback (10,972), Jeep Compass (7,652) and Dodge Journey (2,184).

Hybrid RAV4 sales also eclipsed the company's own Prius line of hybrids, which sold just over 10,500 units last year.

There has been some internal discussions about Cambridge starting to build hybrid versions as well, but MacKenzie said the Woodstock plant is currently able to meet demand. The biggest bottleneck for production is the availability of hybrid batteries.

The new RAV4, the fifth generation of the vehicle that first launched in 1994, was unveiled at the Cambridge plant last March. The plant upgrades also helped Cambridge secure the right to build the new line of luxury Lexus NX gas and hybrid compact SUVs in Cambridge starting in 2022.

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Cambridge currently produces the Lexus RX 350 and Lexus RX 450h hybrid, and will continue to build those vehicles even after the new Lexus line is introduced, MacKenzie said.

jjackson@therecord.com

Twitter: @JamesDEJ