Tesla's Biggest Sales Threat Could Be Toyota

After struggling for the past few years, Tesla has finally gotten its act together. Tesla Model 3 sedans are being produced to meet demand, a new factory has just got online in Shanghai, China, and a second factory will soon be built near Berlin, Germany. There's also this all-important fact: Tesla is now worth more than GM and Ford combined. Not bad at all for an automaker founded in 2003.

In fact, some auto industry and financial analysts believe Tesla poses an existential threat to mainstream automakers. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, but there is another automaker that's also currently on an electrified vehicle sales hot streak. That company is Toyota. Forbes recently did some number crunching and the results speak for themselves.

Last year, sales of Toyota's hybrid vehicles increased by 28.7 percent in the US, while Lexus hybrid sales rose by 43.1 percent. Toyota sold a grand total of 274,550 hybrids in the US in 2019. To compare, Tesla sold about 200,000 vehicles in the US last year.

Remember, Toyota offers non-hybrid versions of its most powerful cars, such as the RAV4 crossover. Customers, however, are opting for the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid in droves. A total of 92,500 RAV4 Hybrids left dealership lots in 2019, a 92.3 percent growth from 2018's total.

All the more impressive is that the RAV4 Hybrid isn't eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit. To be fair, that tax credit expired for Tesla vehicles on December 31, 2019. As of the first day of this year, it is now zero. Only the Toyota Prius Prime, a plug-in hybrid, is eligible for the federal EV tax credit, though due to its small battery and limited range that credit is for only $4,500.