Here's what's stopping Toyota's 2023 Corolla Cross from becoming the king of small SUVs

There’s probably no way that a Toyota Corolla Cross could fail to win over Australians. After all, it’s the SUV version or the world’s most popular car - the Corolla. 

And only a month after it debuted in Australia this new SUV is off to such a cracker of a start in terms of sales, and we may be witnessing a new king-in-the-making of small SUVs. So, what could go wrong? 

Less than a fortnight after the Australian launch of the Corolla Cross the sales results for October came in and this brand-new SUV went straight into the top-five best-selling Toyota models for the month with 1025 registrations. 

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Just to put that in perspective Honda sold 1112 vehicles, in total, for the entire month. 

Sure, a large part of the Corolla Cross’s stunning start can be put down to the many buyers who paid their money and joined the order queue for the SUV some time ago. But that said, for a car to debut as the third best-selling car in the segment behind the Mitsubishi ASX with 1734 sales and MG ZS with 2293 sales in its debut month is an achievement and a sign of things to come.

For the Corolla Cross to become the best-selling small SUV it would have to knock out the ASX and ZS, which are continually up the pointy end of the sales chart month-in month-out.

That’s no easy feat given that both of those models are so popular - particularly the ASX which has been one of the best-selling small SUVs for a decade.

Speaking at the launch of the Corolla Cross in October, Toyota Australia’s vice president of sales and marketing Sean Hanley said the competition is fierce.

“It’s a very competitive market,” he said. “They’re all good. But we think this car stacks up. Stacks up value for money, stacks up for technology, stacks up for safety spec and stacks up because of the Corolla name. We think it’ll be a compelling car on the market. 

“There are no bad cars in Australia to be honest. Every competitor is worthy in perspective, but we put cars in the market that we believe are the best in class. In the end the only person who counts is the customer, they’ll decide.”

It’s true you can’t have sales without a customer, but can you still have sales without a car? See, the industry is in the middle of a stock and supply crisis due to the global shortage in semi-conductors.

Toyota is not immune from the supply issue and in September announced that 10 plants in Japan would suspend operations and thereby reduce output for the rest of the year. That means Australian customers may have to wait even longer for their new car to be delivered.

Toyota sold 1025 Corolla Cross SUVs a fortnight after its launch.

The wait time for Toyota models such as the LandCruiser 300 Series has extended beyond a year, while RAV4 is more than six months depending on the variant.

The Corolla Cross will face delays in the coming year, too, with reports already that some dealer’s order books are full, and prices are increasing due to the demand. 

As Mr Hanley said, Toyota’s overall sales results for the next year will depend on how many vehicles can be secured for Australia.   

“We’ve got a very healthy order bank. Our year in front of us will be largely determined by what we can source in terms of production and at this stage we are working hard with our parent company. Our commitment right now is to try to reduce our order bank and get these cars to customers who have been waiting a long time.

“We have challenges right now - lots of challenges and we have to earn trust and respect from earn from customers even in these challenging times and if you do the right thing, the right outcomes happen.”

Mr Hanley is being politely diplomatic, but what we don't see is Toyota Australia having to elbow out other markets to gain access to Corolla Cross stock. This is a very popular SUV worldwide and other markets will do anything to take our stock if they can for their own customers.

So, it seems that despite it looking as though the Corolla Cross can’t fail, the only way it can become the best-selling small SUV, is if there’s enough of them for customers to actually buy it in the first place.