Full Review: The Toyota RAV4 Prime is the Perfect EV Alternative

if you're on the fence about getting a hybrid or an electric vehicle or the combination of the two like this one this rav4 prime is very intriguing and you're going to want to check it out this is the 2021 toyota rav4 prime it's the plug-in hybrid version of the rav4 and it's very impressive with its electric range and its gas range and this one is fully loaded closing in at around fifty thousand dollars so you're going to see everything you get with the rav4 we're going to take a full detailed look at the exterior the interior take it for a drive and talk about the driving dynamics and everything you need to know about charging this thing let's get started hey before we get started i just want to say thank you so much for watching my name is nolan i do full reviews like this every single week so if you want to see more videos just like this be sure to subscribe down below but also if you're curious about the rav4 hybrid just the regular hybrid i've got a couple videos in the description below but let's go ahead and get started now first i want to start off under the hood and talk about the hybrid and electrical aspect of this rav4 because it's really intriguing if you want to skip around look at the timeline below and i've got it labeled so you can go to whatever part you're looking for the truth about this prime is that it's so much more than just a regular hybrid you still get the 2.5 liter direct and port injected four-cylinder engine but you've got that paired with two electric motors and a big battery pack at the bottom of the vehicle all of that total is going to give you 302 combined horsepower it's all-wheel drive no matter what so every rav4 is going to get all-wheel drive and there's an electric motor at the front and an electric motor at the back and it doesn't operate with a typical transmission it's an electronically controlled cvt and we'll talk about how it drives in a little bit but the best part about this prime is that you can get 42 miles of just pure electric driving without the engine having to run and let me break this down for you it's not going to be quite as efficient with its gas engine as the regular hybrid because it's quite a bit heavier but the efficiency with this model is 40 city 36 highway and 38 combined for a 94 mpg e rating and here's the kicker this still has a 14 and a half gallon fuel tank and if you take the combined average fuel economy you still have 551 miles of gas range after you run out of your 42 miles of electric range so my biggest thing about keeping me away from hybrids or electric vehicles is that i do some long distance traveling sometimes and i know that there's charging stations all across the place but when i go on long distances i could take this and still get 42 miles of electric range but then be able to go on the gas the gas right away for another 500 plus miles and then fill up in just a few minutes and be back on the road that's a big benefit to this plug-in hybrid and then one of the misconceptions about hybrids is that they're slow well this one's not you got the instant electric torque and this is fast it's the second fastest toyota only behind the supra and you'll see that in the test drive and another thing about hybrids and electric vehicles is people are like well the batteries won't last long or the components don't last very long well maybe they will maybe they won't but you're covered either way with this you've got an eight year 100 000 mile hybrid component warranty and a 10-year 150 000 mile battery warranty and that battery warranty will transfer from owner to owner and then with charging some of you are probably like well how do you charge it is it a hassle to charge it no you can just plug it in when you get home at night and just a regular three-prong outlet and it comes with this charger so that you can charge in your garage or at your apartment or wherever just with this this door back here is not the fuel door the fuel doors on the other side this is the charging door just pops open and it can automatically lock and unlock just like the vehicle so nobody can nobody can unplug this while it's locked but it's got a cap on here a cap on there you'll just plug it in clicks into place and then boom it's going to start charging for you and if you charge like this it'll charge it'll give you the 42 miles in about 12 hours so you plug it in overnight but there's a faster option too you can plug into a 240 volt plug kind of like an appliance plug get an optional charger where it can charge you up to 42 miles in about two and a half hours and of course when you're out and about you can plug into some local charging stations too now one little inconvenience about the charging door being back here as opposed to most electric vehicles where it's at the front of the car is that most time you're gonna pull forward into your garage or to a charging station then you have to run the cord back here so unless you back into your garage or you have a good plug-in like on the side it can be a little inconvenient with it being back here but just a very minor complaint the other little complaint about this is if you're plugged in most time the first thing you're going to do is go unplug the car and like i said it locks and unlocks with the car but it does not respond to the smart key which i'll show you a little bit later so if you walk up to it with your key fob you can unlock the doors but if you walk up to this with your key fob it won't unlock you have to actually physically unlock it or touch the door handle to unlock this very minor but just something to know now let's look at the exterior details so for the prime model there's only an se and xse trim level and the top end xsc with options is what we have here for the most part it's going to look very similar to other rav4s but there are some differences here and differences between the se and xsc you can see you've got this black grille you've still got the blue toyota emblem and the glossy black at the bottom with that kind of silver trim piece now every rav4 prime the sc and the xse is going to give you the led accent light which runs around the headlight led high and low beams in projector housings and led daytime running light but you see this accent light down there that is actually only on the xse that vertical running light right there that's something you won't find on any other rav4 except the xse prime there's also parking sensors up here and then one disappointing thing is that there's still just a regular bulb for the turn signal no led turn signal on this one but optional you can get adaptive headlights on the xse trim which we have here and at night they do a really good job because they move side to side they're nice and bright and i have a night video detailing that if you want to check it out in the description below now the body style is going to be the same as well with just subtle subtle changes but we have the super sonic red paint the camera still makes it look a little more orange than it is it's a very deep red paint looks really nice and you can even get the two-tone like the black roof on the xse plus you'll see a lot of the glossy black trim pieces around here too the wheels will vary between se and xse these are the 19-inch xse wheels that are 235 series tires otherwise you'll get 18-inch wheels on the se you don't get a ton of badging but you've got a plug-in hybrid badge right there the xsc is going to give you black mirror caps no matter what the body color mirrors will be on the se both will give you turn signals and both will have heated mirrors and both will have blind spot indicators standard and dimensionally this rav4 prime is still in the compact class at about 181 inches long so it's very maneuverable very easy to operate in the city and ground clearance is still really good at 8.3 inches so that's good if you're going to go off-road or into some rough territory you'll see on the side you've got a lot of black like the gloss black roof you've got the gloss black at the bottom and around the wheel wells what do you think of the two-tone design with the black roof you can also get these roof rails uh the crossbars are an option and then you've got a little bit of a silver trim piece like the other rav4s and you still get an incandescent turn signal back here the tail lights are led but the signal and reverse lights are just regular bulb and there's something cool about the back of the rav4 that i'll show you in a little bit there's actually a hidden camera behind the glass we've got gloss black here and then check it out you actually get chrome exhaust tips double chrome exhaust tips now come into the cargo area this is where you sacrifice just a little bit compared to the regular rav4 first of all a power liftgate is standard on the sc and the xse but you can get this hands-free foot activated liftgate optional on this xse now a deeper look at the cargo area like i said one sacrifice with this prime versus the regular rav4 is there's just a little bit less space it's because of the battery pack under the vehicle that takes up a little bit more room but you still kind of get the same amount of floor space which is really what is the most helpful in packing stuff back here you've got your jbl sub which i'll show you about later you've got this tonneau cover that you can pull out and cover up all of your items if you want so nobody can look in the glass that's an option there you've got just a regular small light right there nothing super helpful there's a 12 volt power outlet and this 1500 watt 120 volt outlet you can power a lot with that 1 500 watt outlet so this would be great for camping or tailgates or anything like that but the space back here is still good at about 33 cubic feet and then you've got a 40 60 split for those rear seats there's no handles back here to fold that you have to actually grab the seat or go to the second row but if you fold those down then you get about 63.1 cubic feet so about six feet less than the regular rav4 but still a good size one little complaint is that there are no grocery bag hooks back here even some cars like the camry i think has grocery bag hooks in the trunk so i'd like to see that and then under here there's a hard floor because we actually get a spare tire spare tires are becoming less and less popular especially in ev and hybrid type of vehicles so that's excellent so as you can see i brought the charging cord with me there's not really a good spot to put it without cramming it down there but i would rather have a spare tire than a spot for the charging cord and then when you're all finished if you have this hands-free option you can just swipe your foot and it'll automatically close another thing is with the power gate on the sc or the xse you can control how high it opens up so that's really nice now let me show you this smart key system so this is a different key fob than what some of the older toyotas had and you'll find one button on here that you don't typically see it's the hold ac button i'll show you how this works in a second so the way the smart key system works with toyota is there's a sensor in the back to unlock it and then just a little touch pad on the top to lock it so it's all touch sensitive now you can get it's just the front doors with the sc so just this door and that door but with the xsc it can be the back doors too and the power liftgate to where it'll automatically open up if you just have the key fob with you but now instead of remote starting because you have so much electric power the gas engine doesn't have to start you press lock and then hold the ac button and then since it's so quiet you can't usually hear it it's actually on right now and the air conditioning is running so you can cool it off or heat up your vehicle but there's one really stupid feature that i complained about in the regular rav4 as well as soon as you open the door boom it shuts off completely the air conditioner is off this door any door in most time i end up putting my daughter in her car seat first and then it'll shut it off so cooling the car off just kind of is pointless if you're just going to shut it off right away now let's dive in and talk about these seats so the se i believe will give you cloth seats but we have a synthetic leather on here heated seats are standard on both trims and check it out you've got the accents on here too for the xse with the red and the red stitching coming down here and i'll show you i'll talk about comfort in a second but these are pretty soft it's not real leather like i said but it's a synthetic leather on the xse then you've got eight-way power adjustment so you've got your regular height and tilt and then you've got two-way lumbar support standard on the s e and xse one optional feature for the xse are these two position memory settings for the driver side the memory settings don't give you the entry exit system where the steering wheel or the seat will automatically move when you get in or out but egress and ingress is very good because it's just a perfect height to slide in another optional feature is ventilated seats so as you can see you've got a heated seat button which will be standard but you can get ventilated seats on the xse trim as an option and comfort in these seats is good i was able to take a rav4 on a long road trip before about 900 miles and i was comfortable pretty much the whole time they're maybe not quite as plush as some but for this class these seats are quite good and comfortable and still pretty spacious one more thing is the steering wheel is manual tilt and telescoping it's got a decent range of motion to it both up and down and in and out but you've also got the optional heated steering wheel button so you can turn that on it's just heated from here to here basically just where your hand should go but it's nice to still have a heated steering wheel optional now climbing into the back seat first of all one thing that you'll notice is that you have soft materials even back here that's not something you always see in this class but nice soft door panel and arm rest and a little storage bin down below you don't have the rubber liner in here like you do up front but you've got this solid grab handle and back seat space is good it's not class leading but it is still good now sitting behind myself at five foot nine where i can sit comfortably i've got good knee space i've got good foot space under the seat as well there's seat back pockets you've got air conditioning vents and you've got two fast charging usb ports down there there's a little bit of a hump in the middle but it's not bad at all you also have this fold down armrest with some padding and a couple of cup holders and these seats don't scoot forward and backwards but they do recline a little bit so i reclined there just a little bit but overall even sitting up tall headroom and leg room everything is good in this back seat and for those of you curious about the car seat and putting kids back here i cannot have the car seat directly behind me where i normally like to sit but if i scoot forward just a little bit it works so good space back here overall one more thing about the back seats you can get these optional as heated outboard seats so you've got the heated seat button right there so that's nice now as we move into the interior this is very much the same as the regular rav4 and that's a good thing because there's some practicality built in here let's go ahead and start it up push button start and it's just super quiet i mean there's hardly anything to indicate that it's on except you see that thing that that little indicator that says ready that means that it's on and ready to go and then the other little indicators you see a little car with an ev inside of it that means you're in ev mode and then the ev mode indicator so let me change this actually if you press i'll press i'll show you the buttons that you push but now it's in hv mode which means it's in hybrid vehicle mode so it can go between using the gas engine and just using pure electric power or both automatically but starting over on the door first of all toyota gives you some nice material all across the top door panel so that is soft touch soft all the way down to your arm rest and toyota gives you this large grab handle with this rubber backing back here i like the grab handle but it's definitely pretty far forward to like pull the door shut but very very minor you get your memory settings here as i told you about and then you've got all automatic one touch windows every single one of those it's just that this is the only button here that gets backlighting none of the rest of them do it's really strange one difference between the sc and xse the sc gives you a black door handle where our xsc gives us this silver one then down there we've got a bottle holder that works just fine for my large bottle and a little extra storage we've got all these buttons down here i'm not going to go into as much detail as i did in other rav4 videos but you got a little storage bin right there some nice soft material up here a heated leather wrapped steering wheel on our model right in front of us this is the same display that you'll get on other rav4s too it's a seven inch display you control everything with the steering wheel and you can change the way that it looks but it's helpful because there's driver assistance features that you can change and customize plus you've got your basic trip computer information you can see pretty much everything you need to even some music driver assistance features and then i usually keep it on this because you can see uh your you know when whether you're in ev or hybrid mode depending on what you're in it gives you a little bit more information you can see i've got 38 miles per hour of range right now and 361 miles of gas range and then it shows you how many kilowatt hours you use per mile plus it gives you your actual fuel economy and over about 132 miles that is seriously my miles per gallon because i've been in a lot of ev mode most of the time we have rain sensing windshield wipers the auto on the windshield wiper stock that's optional on both trims and then right up overhead we actually have a 10 inch head up display which is an option on this xse and then moving over here we've got a nine inch display here but an eight inch display is standard on the se nine inch on this xse i like how toyota still gives you physical buttons a volume knob and a tuning knob so it's not completely touch screen the infotainment definitely is not my favorite though it's just kind of outdated you can customize this home screen and i like to see this sometimes at times when i'm driving to where you can see exactly where the power is going and it can honestly help you learn to be a more efficient driver we've also got apple carplay and android auto it takes up the whole screen it's wired it does it does not have wireless carplay or android auto though you'll see down there we have the jbl sound system that's an option it's an 11 speaker optional sound system otherwise you just get a standard six speaker system and then go ahead and plug your headphones in i'm going to take an audio clip here with binaural audio so let's take a listen [Music] and another optional feature on this xsc check this out it's the bird's eye view camera it doesn't have the best clarity but at least you still have a top-down 360 view camera you can change whether you have dynamic lines or not you can change the view here and then if i even go into park and push the camera button to the left of the steering wheel it gives you a total top-down view just like that or you can press that and literally see from like with inside the vehicle so that's pretty unique and kind of cool then coming down we've got dual zone climate control down here with these huge rubber knobs just like other rav4s you even have an eco heat cool so it won't use quite as much or quite as much power when you do that and then you've got a wireless charging mat down here as well this is on just the xse there's a 12 volt power outlet and a usb plug right there too and then next to the shifter let's look at our drive mode buttons first of all we've got an electronic parking brake an automatic brake hold and then check this out the auto button this will make the vehicle automatically decide between ev mode or hybrid mode but it's going to most likely try to use ev mode to be the most efficient or you can press it again to make it just in ev mode same with here you can toggle between hybrid mode and ev mode automatically so if you want to use more just pure electric range and no gas you can press that if you want to go back to hybrid mode and use a mix of the two press it again if you have low range let's say you only have a couple miles of range and you want to raise it or save the range you press this button and hold it and then and then it will show up on there there will be a little charge icon but the battery is too full to be able to do that but if you have a low battery you can actually raise your electric driving range a little bit then you have your drive modes you have normal you can turn for eco turn for sport and trail mode and i'll go through these in the test drive and show you exactly what those are like toyota gives you a couple of bottle holders right here that are decent size the armrest is also soft and it's fairly wide wide enough to be able to fit two arms on there for some people there's two more usb charging ports that are fast charging and then just a somewhat deep center console i believe there's a tray that's supposed to be here but somebody must have took it maybe there isn't but decent size and moving over even more you've got another shelf right there just like the other side that's great for a little storage cubby for passengers it even has a rubber liner inside so your stuff won't slide around and this whole dash panel is actually soft up and down as well so that is pretty cool toyota gives you a glove box it does not lock but it's decent size then take a look at this you've probably seen this on other toyota products but we've got the optional digital rear view mirror so there's a camera in the back of the vehicle separate from the backup camera that lets you see this and you can zoom in you can change the brightness you can even completely turn it off and have just a regular automatic dimming mirror as well this does not come on the sc it's only optional on the xsc otherwise you'll get an automatic dimming mirror standard on here with garage controls overhead there's a button for the panoramic roof so take a look at this panoramic roof it can slide all the way back this is optional on the xse even we can even open up even when we have these crossbars up above too and at night toyota gives you some soft blue ambient lighting in the multiple storage areas on this xse trim only it is not adjustable or customizable but it does look nice all right y'all let's get going on the test drive in this rav4 so the point of this drive is i want you to get an idea of what it's like to be the one behind the wheel driving this rav4 i'm going to talk about the different drive modes and the different ev hybrid mode and the charge mode even and talk about the differences between the two and when you might want to use them and try to compare it to the regular hybrid as well but just in pure ev mode it's going to be quiet you're not going to hear any engine noise it's going to say ev there will be a little indicator down there and if you want you can go on the screen and go through menus and see exactly where the power is going if you want to so battery is supplying power to the electric motor to power the front wheels i let off the gas or the accelerator then the regeneration from the wheels moving goes back and helps to charge the battery a little bit so it's kind of cool how it works and one thing is that this rav4 prime you've probably heard this it's pretty darn quick um i'll get on it in a second it's the quickest when you have it in hybrid mode where you can use full electric and gas power if you're just in pure ev mode it's still quick but not nearly as quick so i'm in just ev mode right now and coming from a stop here and this is pedal down you just can't tell because it's electric but it's not as fast in just ev mode like that that's to 60 but you can keep it in ev mode most of the time and not really want any more power i mean it is that good with its electric power but if i turn it into ev or h or hybrid mode i should say sorry the gas engine turns on and it'll go between gas and electric and use both but pedal down in hybrid mode and it scoots it gets going you definitely obviously get quite a bit of engine noise when you when you floor it but most you ain't going to be doing that in this rav4 prime and the handling in here is good it's not great it's not obviously a sports car or like the sporty suvs even though toyota kind of markets it like a sporty suv its main function is practicality and efficiency but there's no issues with it the steering is actually pretty light so if that's what you like you're gonna love this i wish it was it felt a little bit more dialed in but it's pretty darn light but it still feels okay for the most part so we're in hybrid mode i let off the gas or let off the accelerator the regeneration from the wheels is still gonna charge the battery but once i get on it the engine will kick in and power the front wheels the electric motors can still power those wheels so it'll toggle between some electric some gas or both or one or the other just depending on the scenario if i put it in automatic mode it will do what it believes is best and if you move to eco while you're in automatic mode it's going to favor being in just electric mode so for example it's in auto mode but we're using just electric power and now as i break the braking especially starts to recharge the battery a little bit it's not a significant amount but it helps to give the battery some additional power so i'll talk about that in a second but i'm in ev mode or automatic mode but it's doing just electric power but if you floor it or you got to get on it or merge or something you heard the gas engine kick in and dang it's pretty quick i mean it'll give you some little butterflies if you're not used to that so automatic mode it's gonna favor ev but once you get on it or need power it'll use the gas engine as needed but you can toggle right back into just ev mode if you want to um so the way the regeneration works is on your head up display or down here on your gauge cluster where there would normally be a tachometer you'll see charge eco power and when you're braking there's a meter that moves into the charge section and there's a certain threshold of the amount that you can regain for charging but if you don't break hard and if you break slowly that's going to help recapture as much energy as possible to make it as efficient as possible now i just put it back in hybrid mode and it's still well the gas engine turned on just now um because i'm accelerating a little bit but it's a pretty smooth transition between going from electric mode to gas engine so here's the deal this probably sounds kind of confusing going between all these different modes if you are not used to this but you could just leave it in auto mode and it'll just do its own thing and you won't have to think about it at all you could leave it in just ev mode and it'll use mostly ev power electric power until you get low on power then it'll use a gas engine as needed so here's the deal if you run out of electric driving range you're 42 miles you've got zero electric driving range left it's going to operate just like the normal rav4 hybrid which is awesome because it's still going to be efficient it's going to operate on gas power and some electric power because it can recharge the battery a little bit the gas engine can even recharge the battery a little bit to where you can still drive in some short spurts of electric mode depending on how much power is needed so you can still get 38 miles per gallon even when you run out of pure electric driving range and then the other thing is you have the charge button so you press and hold this hv ev button and it's not going to let me do it because the battery is close to full even after some of those hard accelerations but with that your gas engine is going to be on the whole time for the most part and it's going to charge the battery so it's going to power the wheels to keep you going but it's also going to charge the battery so as you drive with charge mode on you might be able to accumulate several miles of pure electric range that you could use later on otherwise when you're in hybrid mode hv mode it's not going to eat away your electric driving range nearly as fast as just pure ev mode all right so i put it in sport mode i twisted the dial and it's just going to make it even more responsive with gas and electric and it gets up and moves and vice versa if you put it in eco mode it's going to conserve as much gas as possible so you're going to be largely electric it's going to try to use as much electric power as it can even when you run out of pure electric range it can as possible in keeping the gas engine off but compared to the regular hybrid this is definitely quicker the ride comfort is good it feels a little bit heavier and more substantial but there's one other big thing about it that i'm going to talk about in just a second that's actually improved compared to the last hybrid that i drove before i do that overall ergonomics i've enjoyed driving this i love the little shelving in here i like these big knobs all the physical buttons that you get for practicality's sake and the sight lines are good the controls are easy to operate down here it's comfortable and you've got a decent ride height if you want but you can sit fairly low in here too but now that we're on this surface of a road this is where they improved so you can hear a little road noise but they actually gave us laminated glass on the front windows for this prime both the sc and xse and even though the road noise in here still isn't as good as some competitors it's better than it was and that's something i complained about previously with the rav4 in this even this generation the 2019 model so i'd love that they increased the sound absorption at least with the windows and i'm sure having the battery pack down there maybe absorb some sound too but it's a little bit better and good enough for this class now but i hope you enjoyed driving this rav4 prime and learned something with it let's go ahead and wrap things up now to wrap things up on this rav4 if you've been on the fence about going electric or getting an ev this might be the best option for you because you can still get the benefits of pure ev driving up to 42 miles but then still have all the range over 550 miles on gas so if you do a lot of long distance traveling or you don't have great access to charging but you still want that ev type of driving experience this is the one to go for i hope you learned something from this video obviously this rav4 prime in particular has a bunch of the bells and whistles it's the xse with several options so you've got a lot of stuff on here but you've got a big price too you can get the rav4 prime cheaper with the se without extra options but you're still going to pay a pretty penny for this prime compared to the regular rav4 hybrid so unless you regularly plug in and drive in that pure electric driving type of driving that you get with this if you don't do that enough it's probably not worth it but if you're going to do that a lot it's a great option thank you so much for watching be sure to leave your thoughts down below subscribe if you want to see more videos just like this and if you're curious about the rav4 hybrid i've got a couple videos on the hybrid model down below so be sure to check that out thank you so much have a great day

Channel: Prime Autotainment

Views: 154,503

Keywords: rav4 prime, toyota rav4 prime, 2021 toyota rav4 prime, toyota rav4 prime review, toyota rav4, rav4 prime review, 2021 rav4 prime, rav4 prime 2021, 2021 toyota rav4 prime review, 2021 toyota rav4 prime plug-in hybrid, tesla, model y, model 3, outlander plug in, tucson plug in, rav4 plug in, plug in hybrid, rav4 ev, rav4 review, new toyota rav4, new RAV4 review, RAV3, RAV5, toyota suv, toyota crossover, prime autotainment, pov test drive, toyota rav4 walkaround, rav4 video

Id: L4JaFN0YmpY

Length: 32min 13sec (1933 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021