If you’ve been following along at home, you probably know that I’m generally pretty meh about my Subaru Forester ownership experience and have been passively shopping for something else. I’m an auto journalist so this is fairly easy for me, as I can just try out all the other cars I’m considering. Today’s car? The Toyota RAV4 Prime, aka, the plug-in one.
I’m quite set on a hybrid, as most of my commutes are short, city drives of the kind that benefit from a hybrid drivetrain. This is why I’d love a Ford Maverick and am still actively lobbying for one, though my lobbying hasn’t worked thus far. I’d consider an electric car if I had the ability to charge it at home or work (aka home), which I don’t. The Corolla Cross Hybrid worked out quite well for me and is a little smaller than my Forester.
The family was fine with the Corolla Cross Hybrid and liked the two-tone, but we use our car like most people use their garages and the trunk was slightly smaller. What’s the perfect blend of sometimes-EV, usually-hybrid, reliable, and roomy enough? Enter the RAV4 Prime.
Argument #1: The RAV4 Is The Closest Thing To Our Forester In Size
Things that are better when they’re bigger:
- Chicken fried steaks
- 9th inning rallies
- Renaissance portraits
Things that are generally not better when they’re bigger:
- Artichokes
- 9th inning rallies when it’s the other team
- Cars
It feels like everything is getting bigger all the time. This is less than ideal, especially because I want to have the least amount of car that I can get away with at any given moment. Conveniently, the RAV4 is almost exactly the same size as my old Forester. Seriously, check the numbers:
The Forester is 181 inches long, 71 inches wide, and 67 inches tall. The RAV4 Prime is 181 long, 73 inches wide, and 67 inches tall. So it’s a little wider, but barely.
I borrowed the car to take on a road trip around Texas so, while it wasn’t living a comparable life to my Subaru in New York, I’d at least get to experience a range of driving experiences common to my daily life (going through a drive-thru, going to HEB, putting a kid covered in sand into a car).
Inside it’s a lot newer and nicer than our old Subaru, and it easily fits a family of three (that isn’t going to get any bigger). The tacked-on-screen design is the default in this class, even if it isn’t my personal favorite. Oh well, it was nice to have Carplay.
Out back, there was plenty of space for this long weekend trip, and my daughter had plenty of room to stretch out in the backseat. If there’s one thing that constantly bothered us about the RAV4 Prime it’s the powered rear hatch, which would nervously stop short with any interference, wait for us to hit the open button, then go the opposite direction of what we intended. I prefer a non-powered hatch which, again, is getting rarer and rarer in this class of car.
The front butt-holders in the Subaru are cheap cloth seats that are nevertheless comfortable. The front seats in the RAV4 are a little stiff for my taste, though it’s possible I need to wear them in a bit with my posterior.
My little gripes about the car’s day-to-day usability aside, there would be no discernable loss of function by switching from a Forester to a RAV4 Hybrid.
HOW THIS ARGUMENT DID (9/10)
Argument #2: The RAV4 Is Way Quicker Than The Forester
What, exactly, is the upside of a BOXER engine in my Forester? It’s hard for me to articulate. One thing I don’t get out of my symmetrical all-wheel is anything approaching speed. Most estimates seem to peg the 0-60 mph out of the Forester with the 2.5-liter flat-four at around 9 seconds.
My Subaru is usually loaded with crap, so I’m lucky to get down to anything that feels like sub-10 seconds. I mention “feel” because the Subaru’s CVT always gives the impression of being about as interested in change as your average 90-year-old billionaire.
As previously explored in my Corolla Cross Hybrid review, the RAV4 Prime has a great combination of a motor-assisted hybrid engine/transmission combination driving the front wheels and an electric motor for the rear axle.
If you’re delicate on the throttle, you can get far on just battery power, though you can’t get there fast. If you want to merge onto the highway, however, the combined 302 horsepower and smack of torque can propel the heavy crossover to 60 mph in just 5.7 seconds. That’s fast for anything, let alone a crossover.
Is this speed a necessity? Not really, but the way the electric motor makes up for a CVT’s natural tendency towards low-speed/low-torque sluggishness is something I’d pay real money for these days.
Handling was competent and the ride was slightly softer than the Subaru’s, though neither the RAV4 Prime nor the Forester are going to win any awards for dynamic performance. I’m looking for competent and the RAV4 is competent.
HOW THIS ARGUMENT DID (8/10)
Argument #3: The RAV4 Is Way More Efficient Than Our Forester… Especially If You Can Plug It In
This trip centered around a voyage back to my original home, Corpus Christi, Texas. It’s a coastal city with miles of beaches and plenty of bars (people in the area have reported sobriety to be a challenge). What it lacked, surprisingly, was charging infrastructure.
When I picked up the RAV4 I quickly burned through the EV range it had and therefore the car was converted back into more of a traditional hybrid rather quickly. My dumb assumption was that I’d be able to recharge it at my hotel as I do with plug-in vehicles on most of my trips.
Nope. My hotel didn’t have a charger. The hotel next to it didn’t have a charger. A quick look at Google Maps shows the only chargers around were either Tesla Supercharging Stations or a part of a car dealership:
There were two non-dealership ChargePoints and one Blink station in the vicinity, though neither was near the hotel and both were marked as non-functioning. Oops.
When plugged in, the RAV4 Prime gets 42 miles of all-EV range, which is better than most PHEVs for sale. This is thanks to its larger-than-average 18.1 kWh battery pack. Because I can’t plug in at home, my sense is that I’d mostly be driving it around without that much juice (you can use a charging mode to generate power for the battery, but it makes the car less efficient).
In mostly city driving, the Forester returns a mediocre 20 MPG in my experience. The RAV4 Prime, however, gets 94 MPG combined city/highway if you can squeeze all the juice out of the batteries.
Even if I never plugged it in and relied purely on regenerative braking, the RAV4 returned 33.7 MPG in combined driving. That’s better than what I can get out of the Subaru.
The math here starts to get tricky fast. A nicely loaded Corolla Cross would cost me about $33k, assuming I could find a dealer to sell me one at MSRP. The RAV4 Hybrid Woodland Edition (hybrid, not plug-in hybrid) is $37k and returns a combined 37 MPG.
A basic RAV4 Prime costs about $44k, and if I can only rarely plug it in then I’m spending more money for basically comparable (or worse) performance than any other Toyota I’d be interested in if I can’t get charging at my parking spot.
HOW THIS ARGUMENT DID (4/10)
Conclusion: Maybe A Non Plug-In For Me
As a family, we were fans of the RAV4, in spite of some small annoyances. It’s so popular because it’s an extremely livable car in most ways. The RAV4 also looks modern and, compared to previous iterations, almost attractive (ok, the 1st gen is still the best).
It’s the gold standard for compact crossovers and, if I had a way to regularly charge it, the appeal of not needing gas for most of my journies might outweigh some of the cost.
I can’t get over the cost, though. In my situation, I think the RAV4 Woodland Edition is probably in the sweet spot for price, capability, comfort, and longevity.
I mentioned the Venza in a reply to another post…but…if you’re willing to get a Maverick, how about an Escape Hybrid? The FWD ones are widely available new under $30K (same drivetrain as Mav hybrid and cheaper) and the loaded AWD ones are in the $35K range.
Get one, and get an extended warranty.
I have a friend with a RAV4 Prime and I must admit the thing is awesome. I have generally been dismissive of any RAV4 made after Y2K, but the first time I rode in his RAV4 Prime I was seriously wondering if I should get one. He’s able to charge at home, so unless he is going on a trip, he tops up his fuel tank quarterly (he was still on the dealer-provided tank of gas with 1400+ miles on the odometer). Plus the packaging is good, I actually think it looks reasonably good, and it’s surprisingly quick (certainly enough for 99% of traffic situations).
I will agree that seats could be more comfortable, but I feel that way about most newer cars I sit in – why automakers have decided padding in seat bottoms needs to be rock hard is beyond me.
5.7 seconds 0-60 is fast enough for 150% of traffic situations. Remember how Jason doesn’t own a car that’ll do 0-60 in under 15 on a good day?
Hahaha! Fair point. I gave it 99% because of one interchange in Minneapolis/St. Paul that I had to drive on all the time where you had about 30′ to go from 5-55mph or get run over by traffic. Hopefully that interchange doesn’t exist anymore, but it was always a nerve wracking experience with my slow vehicles.
If you can get away with a trunk instead of a cargo hold, a base Crown XLE is pretty nice and likely well under sticker – probably less than a comparable RAV4 Hybrid, or even a comparable Camry Hybrid with 2024 stocks depleted and 2025 production still ramping up. After all, you’re not getting any younger, so you may as well lean into it and get a full-sized sedan.
Ditto if he can track down a Venza. The RAV4s are hard to find for sale, and the Crown and Venza are invisible
I think I browsed around and didn’t see that many Venzas, or at least that many discounted Venzas. I was looking at high-option Limiteds, though.
One of the pros with the RAV4 is parts availability as a high-volume model. I’ve had issues getting parts for an Avalon but the same part for a same-vintage Camry was readily available, for example.
Plus the regular Crown looks….off (the Signia is neat-looking though). And the Venza screams “retirement village” or close to it.
Geez Matt, you’d think after all of these very compelling arguments your wife would’ve let you get out of the Forester already!
FYI you can just manually push the lift gate closed, ignore the power b.s.
Yeah, the non-plugin one makes way more sense if you have nowhere to charge.
I still can’t believe how good looking the current RAV-4 looks.
Good-looking? I guess so, compared to the current offerings from gm and Subaru, to name a few. It looks like it’s trying too hard to put on an angry face, and kinda resembles the “constipated wrangler” rather than looking like a shrunken 4Runner like they probably were trying for. Or like a pouting child, where they look more pitiful than angry.
It’s almost like looks are subjective, and not everybody likes the same thing.
Nah, that’s crazy talk. /s
-Me who went to university for a largely-unused art major.
Ha!
I got an Architecture degree before deciding to teach shop instead.
You must be a big fan of Star Wars. The Rav4 looks like what Darth Vader’s wife drives in the elementary school car pool.
Actually not at all. I last saw one of the original 3 movies when I was maybe 8, and haven’t watched any of the newer stuff.
Is the prius big enough? Good MPG and looks killer. These both seem boring.
The Prius isn’t quite big enough, in theory, though in practice it’s totally fine! I’m going to live vicariously through Bozi’s.
https://www.carscoops.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Toyota-Prius-T-Demand-8ee-1024×576.jpg
Oh that’s too bad, a giant stepped on someone’s new one. Or that’s what it looks like.
On the whole, either one is probably a lot more reliable than other alternatives. Plug one is faster but the battery is heavy and expensive. So the basic hybrid it is! But then you spend your trips staring at the power flow animation, esp. the tiny slow charging battery, and thinking how splendid it would be have the full 18 KWh to play the ev-mode game with… because that is what one does. Financial side cannot really comment, but on this side of the pond the plug in would probably hold its value really well due to the long battery warranty and being Toyota, and not being bz4x. So the price difference could be offset by the resale value, when the phevs/evs become more popular and the charging network improves. It will happen.
In the meantime you can cash in by writing endless articles about the charging experiences in various locations etc. And troll Tracy with Leaf battery/range comparisons.
Loooool on two fronts:
What’s #3 of the two fronts?
Profit!
Piano black started out on car interiors and is slowing spreading to the exterior surfaces. It’s like Venom from Spider-Man, slowly consuming the vehicles.
I hate the piano black trim on the Prime. Looks terrible. And then BMW decided to start putting it on their cars too.
Wait until it’s been in the desert sun for four or five years. Then it will be Charcoal trim.
Saw a new 5-series today. Thing thing is slathered in it. Rocker panel, half the rear bumper. Again, looks terrible.
Um, duh.
If you cannot plug in a plug-in hybrid, then you should not own a plug-in hybrid.
Move somewhere that you can plug in, and NOT at a freestanding place that will charge you more than the open market price of electricity. I don’t expect that this will be the last car you ever buy (no guarantees on that, as the world is son coming to and end, at least for humans and many other species), so get what you need for today. Toyota is always the answer when the answer is not Miata, should you want to keep the car for an extended amount of time.
Come on man! This is an automative site. It’s braking.
Lol, oops.
I wish my cars had regenerative breaking. I’d name them Wolverine and hoon them and never argue with door cards and single use trim bits or plastic pop screws again.
That would be AMAZING!
I mean, consider the content, right?
My boss has a RAV4 prime. He go to just over 1,000 miles before he needed to fill up the tank for the first time.
Argument#4: it’s not a Maverick.
That probably won’t poll well.
But you know, it’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Just drive off in the Forester one day and come home in the Mav. Tell ‘em it followed you home and didn’t have any tags on it and ‘please can we keep it,’
Tell them the old Subaru has gone to live on a farm out in Vermont or Oregon or Colorado with whole bunch of other Subarus.
If it didn’t involve shipping a Maverick from LA (I’d buy it from Galpin, of course)
-Beg off some “press trip” that happens to be in L.A.
-Sell Subaru before heading to airport.
-Drive Maverick home getting more than double what Mark did towing that MG across the continent.
-Write story
-?????
-Profit
My in laws have both a current gen RAV4 and a current gen CRV. I have driven both and spent a lot of time in them so I feel qualified to weigh in.
…just get a CRV Hybrid. The CRV has more interior space and much nicer interior materials. My in laws have the highly spec’d versions of both cars and the CRV is nearly luxury level. It’s also way more refined. The RAV4 is really showing its age at this point and the interior feels exactly like the throwback to 2018 that it is. Also the CRV is really refined for what it is…while the Toyota NA 4 cylinders can be generously described as agricultural.
And while looks are subjective, I think the new CRV is quite elegant. From certain angles you could easily mistake it for a BMW X1. If you genuinely don’t think you can make a PHEV work to its fullest capabilities then just get a traditional hybrid.
I am driving one right now and, not to give away my review, but it is pretty good.
It’s a great car for what it is. It’s my go to recommendation for people that just want an appliance.
We purchased a CRV Hybrid Sport 3 months ago. Love the thing so far, it rides nice and quiet and feels bigger than it is. I can eke out low 40s in town with it without trying too hard. Never drove a previous-gen CRV but really like this one.
A downside of the CR-V is that Toyota’s hybrid system seems to be more efficient at higher speeds, whether it’s because of the Dynamic Force engine’s excellent 41% peak thermal efficiency or the parallel hybrid’s higher efficiency than the CR-Vs series hybrid direct drive is disengaged. I’d likely still get the CR-V, though.
Where I live in the Toronto area, vehicle theft is out of control. The CRV is one of the most sought after vehicles by thieves, so choosing a CRV means noticeably higher insurance premiums.
I would get a quote before deciding, but otherwise the Honda looks pretty great.
CR-V hybrid has an abysmally noisy interior (for the second row anyway), and the Earth Dreams engines have been having oil dilution issues. I would not recommend a Honda right now.
RAV4 Prime XSE Premium first vehicle I ever loved. But I bought early and got the $7500 tax credit otherwise it’s not a good deal. I’m at 86mpg and I like that. Right now electricity is $1.00 cheaper per gallon than the gas equivalent. There is a 120V cord located near the spare tire that will fully charge it in 12 hours, any outlet will do.
I’ll add with the tax credit it was a few hundred more than the hybrid limited making it a no brainer.
I sometimes wish I’d gotten one before the tax credit change. I got the tax credit on my Niro, and I was trying to upgrade to the new Sportage PHEV and thought I could afford to be picky on my color combo and missed out. I found a RAV4 Prime that was only about a state and a half away without mark ups (beyond requiring I buy PPF, which wasn’t the worst), but I tried to wait for the Sportage.
It was really a hell of a deal with the credit.
Same. They were hard to get though. 1) It was still fairly new and 2) People recognized the deal of getting the Prime for barely more than a hybrid.
I do think Toyota offers lease incentives on the Prime though, so maybe it is possible to lease one and then buy it out to get a nice discount. That appears to be the play these days for the non-tax credit EV/PHEVs.
Oh, shoot, I see that they are offering $6500 on the lease. They weren’t offering that last time I checked. That’s not bad at all. My local dealer doesn’t get enough Primes to deal with, but there’s one not too far that might.
The Sportage PHEV is only offering up to $3950 right now. Interesting to see the more sought-after PHEV with the better discount.
There are actually quite a few Primes in my area, some are even advertising a discount from sticker of $1-2k. Need buy another car first though.
2020 rav4 hybrid owner here. Highly recommend. Just don’t get gray like we did. You can wander lots for years trying to find it in the sea of gray suvs. Anyway, we love it. It’s very comfortable to drive for both of us despite a considerable difference in height and shape. We are just under 40mpg for our 4 years of ownership. It’s a great highway car while being nimble around town. Ride is comfortable and the hybrid drive train is pretty zippy. Not a hemi but still way better than my 4runner was. I get the complaint on the power hatch as ours gets grumpy in cold weather. Other than that, 0 complaints. Full disclosure though. I come from a line of Toyota fans and have driven them most of my driving life.
Wait… you can’t accelerate on just electricity in EV mode? If you punch it it’ll automatically start the engine?
EV only up to 85 mph. If you floor it at near freeway speeds it might start the engine.
If you floor it from a stop it will start the engine. But, yeah, if you drive relatively normally, you can easily get up to freeway speeds on electric.
Thought I’ve mashed it pretty good starting out but I’ll try it again.
Yeah, pretty much every EV on the market will turn on the gas if you punch it hard. That said, if you don’t mash the pedal often, it’s not that hard to stay on EV mode.
Huh, interesting. I was under the impression they worked like the Volt.
It’d be a lot better if they did. I wish Chevy would just bring that setup back in a bunch of body styles. It’d be a massive hit now, I think.
Agreed.
My Escape PHEV will automatically start the engine if you mash the gas in the default Auto mode, but in the latching EV only mode it’ll ask for permission first. It’s probably safer for the general consumer for it to be this way.
Yup the auto set up is the best and safest for the average driver, I’m just glad they do offer a true EV only mode that keeps the engine off almost all the time. The one exception I’ve had was in sub freezing temps and of course I was requesting heat. The engine run just long enough to heat up the cabin and presumably the battery.
I think you’re making the right call by saying maybe hybrid is better than plug-in hybrid for your use case. I’m a bit surprised by the relatively low efficiency of the hybrid RAV 4 though. The Maverick does better and it looks like a brick stacked on top of a brick. I’m partial to the Maverick because I have one, but I’ve ridden in a RAV 4 and it was good too. .
I didn’t see anything explicit about this, but it seems to be implied you can’t charge in your regular parking spot. If that’s true, don’t get a PHEV. You’ll never make the money back over a regular hybrid.
Might I suggest the Kia Sportage Hybrid for your dimensions? It looks fantastic and the 1.6T hybrid system has been used heavily by Kia/Hyundai at this point. Granted, it tends to underperform its EPA estimates but it still does well. Going slightly larger would get you into CR-V Hybrid territory which would be nice as well, especially because Honda’s hybrid system usually acts as a series system in city driving.
These are good points, my friend just got a Sportage after chatting with me about it and it’s on the list.
If you’re considering a Hyundai/Kia, then maybe stick with the Subaru. Having to keep replacing lightbulbs seems a bit easier than having to keep replacing main bearings 😉
I’m not confident with Kia/Hyundai’s reliability/dependability right now.
If you must own one, get a Genesis. At least the waiting room should be nicer (if they have one).
I think I came to the same conclusion as you Matt, if you can’t charge a BEV you’re probably going to find it as hard if not harder to charge a PHEV unfortunately.
That being said would it be worthwhile trialing living with an EV for a while and having to use exclusively public charging to see how that goes in the real world?
Robert Earl Keen is a treasure, thank you for the reminder. I saw him live at a summer music series in the park, and it was wonderful
I enjoy how the real target readership of the series seems to be very small, and likely those with whom Matt eats dinner most nights. And we happily aid/abet.
“So, did anyone find anything interesting on autopian today? Yeah, sure, Torch is a character all right, but see anything else of note? No…I mean, yeah I get it, I never thought he’d be into the i3 either, but…nothing else??”
I don’t know. I think there is a real case to be made for a whole comparative shopping series presented as arguments for/against vehicles. If you’re someone shopping in the same segment, it could be really helpful. Of course, we’d need them to have links to each group, because searching for each one of these might not be convenient.
The premise of presenting these arguments to family allows some exploration of how a car person and a normie see things differently when shopping. I definitely run into that with my partner, and it is interesting to see how it crops up differently here.
I’ll realistically consider a Prime and a Maverick for my next car, so I appreciate this far more than the Maserati Gran Turismo review I just saw on another website.
If you’re looking at this size and hybrids/PHEVs, you might also throw the Tucson/Sportage on the list. I find the RAV4 has more road noise than those two. But I’m also more aware of tire roar than anyone I know, so that may not matter to you.
I don’t think enough time has passed for folks to be confident in Kia/Hyundai just yet. The GDI nightmare is far from over, plus the high theft and vandalism rate still.
Speaking as someone who is in the middle of helping his parents buy two Toyota hybrids, and who has done more research on these family haulers than I ever expected to, you’re on the right track with the non plug-in I think.
Basically very little in the new car realm can compete with a Toyota hybrid on TCO, even other Toyotas.
Estimating a $10,000 difference to get the plug, you’re going to need to save some 3,000 gallons of gas to pay that back. Even assuming the very best case (94 MPG vs 37) and 12,000 miles per year, that is a 15 year payoff. Any long trips are going to bring that 94 mpgE down, extending the payoff even more.
Consider the weight and volume of that Primer battery. It has to go somewhere, robbing interior or trunk space. Check the weight, too. I’d be surprised if it’s under 400 lbs. That monkey will always be on your back. It’s worth it if you can plug in regularly, but…
Honda CRV Hybrid?? I think it looks better than the RAV4. I think you’d have to religiously plug it in to make up the cost differential between a regular hybrid.
On a pure cost basis that seems fair. At the same time RAV4 Prime resale value seems to be extremely strong, even compared to the RAV4 Hybrid, and the big power bump might make it worthwhile. But for purely practical reasons, the Prime isn’t necessarily the best option for everyone.
So you are advocating spending an extra $10,000 to get an extra less-than-$10,000 at some hypothetical future sale?
I mean, this is the Autopian. I don’t think many of us here are making purely rational car purchasing decisions.