NEW DELHI/AUSTIN: Soaring demand for Toyota’s gasoline-electric hybrids has left suppliers struggling to keep pace, leading to shortages of parts and months-long waits for car buyers, according to four people familiar with the situation.
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The surge in demand presents a challenge for Toyota, the dominant player in hybrids. But it also vindicates the Japanese automaker’s bet on the technology against predictions by some rivals that battery-only electric vehicles would wipe out hybrid demand.
Global sales of hybrids, including plug-in models, have almost tripled to 16.1 million from 5.7 million over the past five years, according to data provided by LMC Automotive.
Toyota’s European customers are waiting on average 60 to 70 days for new hybrids, about double the duration in 2020, one of the people said.
Vehicles with the heaviest demand and shortest supply in Europe include the Yaris Cross hybrid and RAV4 plug-in hybrid, according to Toyota.
In Japan, buyers are waiting two to five months for many models, a Toyota website shows.
At one U.S. West Coast dealership, Prius hybrids were sold out in mid-February and just a handful of Camry hybrids were available, another person said.
And in India, an important growth market for Toyota, delivery times have improved since last year but are still two to nine months depending on the model, another person said.
Reuters interviewed 10 industry figures, including people at Toyota and its suppliers, who described bottlenecks affecting the hybrid supply chain.
Details of the parts and suppliers involved, and some measures Toyota is considering to ease the strain in one market, have not been previously reported.
Toyota sells 10.8 million vehicles in 2024 to remain world’s top-selling automaker
Toyota said in a statement that demand for hybrids had increased “significantly in the past year in all regions” and it was doing its best to boost production in response.
The automaker said it had improved vehicle delivery lead-times over the past year.
“Currently, the production capacity for hybrid parts and components from our suppliers and our in-house parts manufacturing is line with our annual production plans and our vehicle assembly capacity,” it said.
Supply snarls
The delivery times are causing headaches for some customers.
Saugata Dasgupta, an Asia Development Bank executive in New Delhi, told Reuters he ordered a hybrid Toyota Innova Hycross SUV in January 2023.
But he learned from the dealer in August 2024 that he faced a further wait of 25 to 30 weeks.
This month, another email arrived: He would need to wait another 15 to 25 weeks.
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