The slow-selling twin to the Toyota RAV4 from Suzuki – exclusive to Europe – has proved popular enough for a new generation.
The Toyota RAV4’s little-known Suzuki sibling will enjoy an encore to help the Japanese city-car specialist meet tough emissions rules – but the new generation is unlikely to debut the model line in Australia.
The Suzuki Across has been sold in Europe and the UK since 2020 as a rebadged version of the Toyota RAV4 plug-in hybrid, with new headlights, a different front bumper, and Suzuki logos in place of Toyota emblems.
It forms part of a global partnership between the Japanese brands, which see them own millions of dollars worth of shares in each other – and share new models.
Despite being outsold eight-to-one by its donor car, a new Across is due in European showrooms next, based on the latest RAV4.
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“There will be a successor to the Suzuki Across. We expect that in the first quarter of 2026 [January to March],” a Suzuki Netherlands spokesperson told Dutch website AutoRAI.nl.
“More information will be announced at a later date, but the RAV4 will once again form the basis.”
However, it is unlikely to be sold in Australia, given the outgoing Across was not offered here. Drive has contacted Suzuki Australia for confirmation.
If offered in Australia, the first-generation Across could have beaten Toyota to the punch in selling a plug-in RAV4 – something the Japanese giant will finally offer itself with the new-generation model due in the first half of 2026.
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Suzuki does not readily publish model-by-model sales data for the European market, but figures from 2022 – albeit at the height of pandemic-related stock shortages – reported by Good Car Bad Car suggest it clocked up 2612 deliveries in 2022.
That compares to 21,044 RAV4 PHEVs, according to Toyota’s own figures, plus a further 73,403 plug-less RAV4 hybrids.
Despite its relative unpopularity, the low emissions produced by the plug-in hybrid drivetrain help Suzuki meet stringent emissions targets in Europe, rules which will soon be mirrored in Australia.
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AutoRAI.nl reports the new Across will once again be a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), which would see it draw upon one of the 2026 RAV4’s two externally rechargeable power options.
All versions of the new RAV4 PHEV use a 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, multiple electric motors and a 22.7kWh battery, 30 per cent larger than the outgoing model sold in Europe.
Front-wheel-drive models develop 197kW in Europe, while optioning all-wheel drive boosts power to 224kW, for a claimed 0-100km/h acceleration time of 5.8 seconds.
The Toyota is rated for 100km of electric-only driving range in European WLTP lab testing.
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The partnership between Toyota and Suzuki has most recently spawned the Suzuki e Vitara and its near-identical twin, the Toyota Urban Cruiser, as well as the Suzuki Swace, a rebadged Toyota Corolla hybrid wagon.
In emerging markets, a number of vehicles engineered by Suzuki are rebadged as Toyotas, and vice versa.
Showroom arrivals of the new Suzuki Across in Europe are expected to follow the next-generation RAV4’s introduction there in early 2026.
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