Small Crossovers Are Catching Up To Big Trucks Among America's Best-Selling Vehicles

Full-size trucks have been the best-selling vehicles in the U.S. for decades, but a crossover came close to unseating one of the pickups in 2023. Among the top ten best-sellers last year, the Toyota RAV4 came in at fourth place while the Ram 1500 came in third behind the Chevy Silverado and Ford F-150.

The Chevy and Ford finished in second and first place, respectively, but the difference between the Ram and RAV4 was less than 10,000 units sold, which is a sign that small crossovers may be catching up to big trucks in America.

Photo: Toyota

The last time that any vehicle besides a pickup was in the top three best-sellers was the Toyota Camry in 2014, according to CNBC. Ten years later, trucks are still in the lead, but the Toyota RAV4 is not far behind due to a combination of stronger sales for the crossover and weaker sales for the Ram. Per CNBC:

Sales of the Toyota RAV4 compact crossover came within 10,000 units of Stellantis’ Ram pickup truck last year, a near-No. 3 ranking that would have marked the first time since 2014 that a non-pickup claimed one of the top three U.S. sales podium positions.

The RAV4 has rapidly closed the gap: In 2020, the vehicle undersold the Ram truck by more than 133,000 units. Last year, it lagged by just 9,983. Stellantis sold 444,926 Ram pickups last year, a 5% decline from 2022.

Sales of the Ford F-150 remained strong with a total of 750,789 units sold, while the Chevy Silverado finished 2023 with 543,780 trucks sold. Again, the Ram 1500 was behind both Ford and Chevy pickups with 444,926 units sold. CNBC says the top five were rounded out by the Toyota RAV4 at 434,943 units sold, and Tesla Model Y at 394,497 vehicles sold. That’s two crossovers behind the trucks — and one of them is an EV, which is also notable.

CNBC cites analysts from Cox Automotive who say that full-size truck numbers are bolstered by fleet sales in the U.S., which partially explains their dominance:

“Trucks are always at the top because they’re bought by not only individuals, but also fleet buyers and we saw heavy fleet buying last year,” said Michelle Krebs, an executive analyst at Cox Automotive. “The RAV4 shows that people want affordable, smaller SUVs, and the fact that there’s also a hybrid version of that makes it popular with people.”

That makes the stats of the Toyota RAV4 all the more impressive, because there are no fleet sales to goose the numbers. The popularity of the RAV4 has been steadily gaining since the pandemic years in 2020, according to the sales data. But the American public’s infatuation with Toyota’s compact crossover (and other crossovers in general) seemingly predates the stats.

Anecdotally speaking, the Toyota RAV4 has been the car of choice for what seems like everyone. The RAV4 is almost as ubiquitous as full-sizers from Ford, Chevy and Ram. It makes sense that it would take something like a crossover to even attempt to unseat big trucks from the top three best-sellers. The pickups have retained their lead for now, but it’s nice to see “compact” anything nipping at the heels of full-size trucks in America.