Toyota RAV4 five-star ANCAP rating expected to boost fleet sales

Toyota Australia expects sales of its best-selling model, the Toyota RAV4 mid-size SUV, to increase once independent crash-testing is carried out in Europe before the end of this year, which it anticipates will result in a five-star safety rating.

The new-generation RAV4 arrived in Australia earlier this year and topped the national sales charts in April, July and August 2026, but it remains without a safety rating from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

While Toyota has described the new RAV4 as “the safest RAV4 ever”, and the previous generation attracted a five-star rating, the current model remains officially unrated by ANCAP.

Key rivals including the new Mazda CX-5, launched earlier this year, as well as the Hyundai Tucson and Mitsubishi Outlander, all have current five-star ANCAP ratings.

For many government, business and rental fleet buyers – which together accounted for 39.5 per cent of RAV4 sales in 2025 – purchasing a vehicle without a five-star safety rating is not permitted under workplace health and safety policies.

That’s set to change, according to Toyota Australia's sales boss John Pappas.

“Because that vehicle’s similarly specced to the European vehicle, that’s been scheduled to be Euro and ANCAP tested in the last quarter of this year,” Mr Pappas explained to CarExpert.

“Which, my understanding is, it’s on schedule, and we are anticipating as a result of that for it to be a five-star-rated vehicle with ANCAP.”

Making matters more difficult was the timing of the latest RAV4’s arrival, with tougher new assessment protocols introduced by ANCAP in 2026 after they were developed in partnership with Euro NCAP.

The new protocols saw BYD withdraw its Sealion 5 mid-size SUV from testing, before ANCAP independently tested the vehicle instead. It subsequently achieved a three-star safety rating.

While the RAV4 was launched in Australia without a safety rating, Toyota promised a number of running “upgrades” for this year, which it is yet to detail. It says they will be included in RAV4 vehicles arriving here from this month.

Those upgrades are intended to help the RAV4 achieve a five-star rating which, if achieved, will open the model up to more fleet buyers, Mr Pappas said.

“We originally planned to launch that car the year before, but we moved it to April, and so we didn’t have the first quarter really from a scoreboard point of view regarding our sales.

“Then on top of that, some of the fleets, we’ve had to manage their expectations of timing because of their five-star policies.

“So next year we’re going to be able to get a full year of run rate, and we’ll be able to satisfy those customers that have been waiting in the fleet side with a five-star-rated vehicle.”

Year-to-date, the RAV4 is Australia’s fourth most popular new vehicle, having topped the monthly sales charts in April, July and August.

The Ford Ranger ute remains the sales leader through to the end of September, ahead of its arch-rival, the Toyota HiLux, with the Tesla Model Y mid-size electric SUV third and the RAV4 fourth.

The top three best-sellers all have five-star ANCAP safety ratings, although none achieved them under the tougher 2026 protocols. That includes the HiLux, which received its rating under the previous ANCAP testing regime in December 2025.

“We’ve had inquiries from fleet customers regarding the RAV4 because the safety level on that vehicle’s very safe – from a safety point of view, the safest RAV4 we’ve ever had in the market – so now to be able to get that five-star from a policy point of view, if you’re a fleet customer, is good news,” Mr Pappas said.

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