The ever-popular, multi-award-winning Yaris* nameplate has reached 10 million cumulative worldwide sales, performance which earns it a place alongside Toyota’s illustrious eight-figure achievers – Corolla, Camry, RAV4, Hilux and Land Cruiser.
Yaris has consistently been a pioneer, introducing new technologies and concepts to the compact car market for almost a quarter of a century. Its spirit of innovation has helped maintain its status as one of Toyota’s consistently best-selling models in the UK and Europe.
The first generation Yaris became the first Toyota to be named European Car of the Year, in 2000. That accolade was matched by the Toyota Vitz (the model’s name in Japan) which won the Japan Car of the Year title. Since that impressive start, each Yaris generation has been shortlisted for the European Car of the Year with the current model successfully claiming the award in 2021.
The third generation Yaris has the distinction of being the first B-segment model to offer customers a full hybrid electric powertrain, a significant step forward in Toyota’s mission to make its super-efficient technology available to as wide a market as possible. Today, Yaris is exclusively a hybrid model in the UK market.
The current, fourth generation Yaris has demonstrated its ability to adapt to changing customer needs, its “family” growing to include the widely acclaimed GR Yaris pure performance sports car in 2020 and the high-riding Yaris Cross urban crossover SUV in 2021.
From the launch of the original model in 1999 to the end of February 2023, cumulative sales of Yaris family models in Europe had reached 5,155,506; these include 715,845 sold in the UK. In 2022, Yaris accounted for more than one third of Toyota’s total European sales and eight per cent of the market segment; in the UK the proportions for the hybrid hatchback were greater still, at 21.7 and 10 per cent, respectively.
Yaris is a genuinely global model, manufactured at sites around the world. Initial production started in January 1989 at the Takaoka plant in Japan; today it has production bases in Japan, Brazil, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, France and the Czech Republic. Toyota Motor Manufacturing France has produced Yaris since 2001 and Yaris Cross since 2021, the same year that Toyota Motor Manufacturing Czech Republic launched additional production to meet increasing demand. More than 4.6 million Yaris have been built in Europe (to end of 2022). Key components – engines and transmission – are supplied by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Poland.
* The 10 million cumulative sales milestone includes the Yaris, Vitz, Yaris Cross and GR Yaris nameplates.
