Toyota Australia’s boss of sales and marketing says the new sixth-generation RAV4 SUV is the “safest RAV4 ever”, despite planned running changes later this year to achieve a five-star ANCAP safety rating.
The company confirmed at the 2026 RAV4’s Australian media launch that it’ll be ‘unrated’ by ANCAP at launch, with a “product update in the second half of 2026” to bring running changes to meet tougher new 2026 ANCAP and Euro NCAP safety protocols.
John Pappas, vice president for sales and marketing at Toyota Australia, stressed that the sixth-generation RAV4 is still “the safest RAV4 ever” despite the staggered rollout, with the confirmed “product updates” to be optimisations to undisclosed active and passive safety systems in order to achieve a five-star ANCAP rating.
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“The safety on the [RAV4] is the best we’ve ever had. And you know, we were planning to try and launch it last year, but due to production delays we’ve launched it now [under new 2026 protocols],” Mr Pappas told CarExpert.
“But I stick by what I’m saying, it’s all about the level of safety we’re providing to our customers, and you know for us [at Toyota] that’s what is most important,” Mr Pappas continued.
“With safety, every vehicle, every single opportunity we get, whether it’s a minor change, a tech change, we always continue to upgrade our safety features [and] product features. That’s just what we do.
“Every single year, we try to do that across all our cars, as we introduce any of those minor changes or tech changes – so this is no different for us.
“So again, yes there’s been a delay, [it’s] the safest RAV4 ever, and there are so many [safety] features… so we really back the safety of the car, and we’re really proud of having that vehicle to be the safest RAV4 ever.”
Toyota’s local product team said during a Q&A that the incoming “product updates” don’t include any structural changes at a factory level, but won’t necessarily be retrofittable to early deliveries – therefore the initial batch of vehicles for the first six months or so will remain ‘unrated’.
Details of the upgrades are still to be confirmed at this stage, with Toyota’s representatives only confirming it will involve “some enhancements to the passive and active safety systems”.
The Japanese brand has confirmed the RAV4 was initially meant to be launched in Australia before the end of 2025 and therefore engineered to meet previous ANCAP and Euro NCAP protocols, however production delays due to “quality” being the “number one priority” have forced the new-generation SUV to be launched in 2026.
ANCAP – or the Australasian New Car Assessment Program – has implemented new safety and crash testing protocols for the 2026-28 period, developed in conjunction with sister firm Euro NCAP.
You can read all about the 2026 ANCAP safety protocols here, but the headline change is moving from a ‘box-ticking’ system to a ‘stages of safety’ approach, better assessing in-car distractions and real-world performance of active safety and assistance systems.
The new-generation 2026 Toyota RAV4 is already in dealers in hybrid form, with the Australia-first plug-in hybrid (PHEV) range arriving in the coming months.
Prices for the all-electrified SUV range kick off from $45,990 before on-road costs, with even the base grade getting the full gamut of safety features and systems available with the sixth-generation range.
Despite the staggered rollout, Mr Pappas confirmed Toyota Australia had over 10,000 pre-orders for the new RAV4 before it went to wholesale earlier this month, and that the Japanese brand’s local division expects the SUV nameplate to deliver over 40,000 registrations for the 2026 calendar year.
While that’s well off the near-52,000 deliveries of 2025, it’s worth noting RAV4 sales are well down year-to-date in 2026 as the first quarter of the year has seen the previous-generation model in runout.
Stay tuned to CarExpert for our Australian launch drive review of the new Toyota RAV4 Hybrid on Wednesday, April 22 at 7:00pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST).
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