Is The 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime BETTER Than The Tesla Model Y? It's Closer Than You Might Think!

ladies and gentlemen in this video we're going to be comparing the most interesting dare i say the most important toyota of the last even decade i would go and that's because we have a direct comparison between two very interesting cars i know what you're thinking it's not the toyota supra it's right here it's the toyota rav4 but this one is special because this is the most buzzworthy new toyota out there it's the rav4 prime which means it's a plug-in hybrid yep it can go on electricity only and that's why we have it next to this the tesla model y which at least price wise is a direct competitor all right not this one this is the performance but if you have the regular y and tommy let's talk numbers you seem to be deep in thought i'm very skeptical here because i was a little on the fence of doing this video basically what we have is a luxury vehicle yep we're comparing it to toyota yep this one has a gasoline engine yep we're comparing it to an eevee this one has a motor and an engine that's true but here's why i was skeptical because price-wise i thought no way in heck would they even come close to competing until i started configuring them yep this one as you see at the toyota almost 50 grand the model y starts at almost 50 grand still kind of on the fence about doing this video and then i read the comments and we had like 100 people that wanted us to compare them so that's what we're doing today should you buy the fully electric model y or the rav4 prime now i'll get to the numbers okay let's talk about them really quick uh this is a performance y so this is a little bit skewed yeah 63 grand for this one but they start at under 50. the toyota is the rav4 prime xse has an msrp of forty nine thousand six hundred dollars so price wise they can compete now let's talk about performance it's an important one yeah performance wise um uh they don't compete because let's start with range so what's the range on the toyota with the gasoline and electric motor the epa says get this 600 miles how about on the tesla model why well with the small wheels it's about 316. yep this one is about 291 so we're talking half the range in the y yeah so at least range-wise they don't compete um how about all electricity-wise uh how far will this one go using just electricity in other words what's the battery size yeah so the toyota is rated at 42 miles according to the epa of full electric operation before it kicks on the gasoline engine yep and then when it kicks on the gasoline engine engine that's how you get the 600 miles right when you combine the electric and the gasoline this one like i said about 291 efficiency wise so get this so the tesla's rated this one with the big wheels 111 mpg equivalent this one on electricity 94. so a lot less efficient so you're probably thinking ah well the tesla's better ah but for a lot of people the toyota might be the better purchase now let's kind of dive into the toy a little bit right yeah before i let you do that let me kind of talk about how they're also very similar before you think we're completely crazy they are both crossovers in other words they both have a lot of space they're both tall cars they are both all-wheel drive uh so they're similar in that regard they're both red they're both red they both cost about the same and here's one that's actually also true they're both really kind of tricky to get uh the model y for a long time was almost impossible to get and toyota so far is only committed to building 5 000. that's insane uh of the primes uh and so unless you already have your name down for one for this year you're not gonna get one all right let me show you under the hood so this looks like a pretty standard rav4 2.5 liter four-cylinder gasoline engine uh but when you make this gasoline engine with several electric motors that's where you get the rav4 prime's party trick because come back here to the rear of the vehicle i just can't believe this this rav4 zero to 60 in the six second range horsepower 302 302 horsepower to rav4 and that's because of this baby right here now this is the plug and the way a plug-in hybrid works is you can charge this puppy up at night wake up in the morning with 42 miles of full electric range or you never have to drive it you never have to plug it in at all and just drive it around like a normal hybrid and when you drive it around as a normal hybrid toyota will will tell you that it will still do 0 to 60 in that same 6 second range because the car is smart enough to always keep a reserve in the battery and then fill back up to that reserve if you start to drain it so it's a pretty versatile platform and the other cool thing is like we said if you don't want to plug it in at all just come over here well i gotta pop it uh where does toyota put the fuel here we go damn check this out good old-fashioned dino juice can go on that puppy and then you're looking at uh just a normal car you can drive now charging is an interesting story with the rav4 prime right so no fast charging nope which means that it'll take a while to charge now the standard rav4 prime has about a 3.3 kilowatt onboard charger it's very slow uh even at 240 volts that's gonna take you six some hours right yeah it depends uh you know how how so i drove it all weekend uh and i just plugged it into the regular wall outlet after i completely deleted the deplete of the battery yeah so long like 12 hours 12 hours yeah but this one is the xse it's the top trim so this one has a 6.6 kilowatt onboard charger which will charge the 18 the 18 kilowatt hour battery in like three hours two and a half three and a half hours yeah yeah so so that's better um should we hop inside and shoot interior yeah why don't you hop inside and show the interior um and now close the hood would you yeah hop in and show them the interior because it is interesting it is interesting first of all sticker wise right oh man everything's falling out here's the sticker 49 hundred and sixty one dollars so almost 50 grand for a rav4 seems like a lot until you look at the amount of tech that you get in here so uh not only do you have this large touchscreen display that is prominently featured in the center of the dash here you of course have apple carplay you've got navigation um by the way the tesla doesn't have apple car play uh bluetooth connectivity a volume knob another thing that tesla doesn't have uh a tune knob the steering wheel no the steering wheel does not even count at the steering wheel volume and two knobs the rav4 has the tesla doesn't the rav4 also has knobs for the climate control what a concept i can go uh and and select the climate control just by not even looking at it i love the knobs in this and this also has heated and ventilated seats the tesla does not have ventilated seats the tesla also doesn't have a heated steering wheel this has a heated steering wheel drive modes as well eco sport normal and trail and then we get to the kind of the confusing part which are these buttons i don't think toyota has executed this very well but look at these hieroglyphics you've got auto ev hv ev hv charge hold the car tells you when it's an ev it tells you when it's in ev mode which believe it or not is two separate displays on here because you can be an ev but be in hybrid vehicle mode it's just kind of a mess i just need a button that says ev and a button that says hybrid and that would be enough for my liking the auto evhv thing it makes sense to me i could spend the rest of my life explaining it to you but for non-car people just an evhv button would be better hp for hybrid vehicle seats leather upholstery very comfortable very comfortable seats super usable i also like the leather across the dash so if you get past the toyota badge here basically alexis panoramic sunroof check this out ian open that baby up look at that two panes of glass and the other thing too is everything so well made all the materials are just tight as a drum all the switch gear is beautifully crafted exterior panels the gaps are more consistent than i could ever have imagined this of course also has toyota safety sense 2.0 so it's got adaptive cruise control lane keep assist it's got paddle shifters by the way the tesla doesn't have paddle shifters uh wireless charging here as well dual cup holders and the rear seat is also very very usable check this out this is my driving position at six foot one inch tall i've got enough leg room even with the sunroof a lot of headroom i've got set a couple different usbs back here air vents in the rear in the trunk power liftgate right and the other great thing about this check this out nice um tall roof line so unlike the tesla this doesn't slope down in the rear and compromise um either headroom or storage capacity this is nice and tall 1500 watt outlet back here ac 120 volts this is the supplied charge connector this is a j1772 plug there is no fast charging available on the toyota rav4 prime currently so if you want to get this thing charged in half an hour like you could on a kind of a traditional ev where you can go zero to 80 in 30 minutes you can't do it on the rav4 but you don't have to because it has a gasoline engine to fill in the gaps when you are out of electric battery supply this is a brilliant car it really is it's so quick it handles well it holds a lot of stuff and now my dad's going to tell you why the model y might be a better or perhaps worse choice all right i'm going to agree with tommy on uh two points okay the first point is very simple and that is the toyota is built so much better if you look over here you can see just how crazy misaligned uh this tailgate is i mean i suspect that if the toyota engineer were to see that he would fall or she would fall dead on the spot because that is something that no toyota would ever do the other issue we've had with this car of course um is reliability we bought it and uh about two weeks after owning it we've owned it for about three months now this door lock stopped working so in other words i could not get whoa not even the door lock the door the actuator like you couldn't open or close the door yeah it was like permanently closed from the front and this is where things get a little bit more complicated because if that had happened on the toyota which i don't think it would happen but let's say it happened on the third it can't it's got mechanical door handles look at that look at that action just for the sake of argument let's say that that had happened you would have had to take it into your dealership and they would have had to fix it with tesla i called actually i didn't even call up i used my phone to schedule a mobile service a guy in a tesla showed up uh and replaced uh the actuator that opens the door here in this very space in this parking lot drove away and the vehicle was fixed and it only took four weeks well it took two visits because first he realized the door and uh then the next day he stopped working again and then i had that he had another appointment to have actually a new activator never happened before like i said never our f4 engineer probably dropped that on the spot just you know so one thing i do like about this right yeah uh there's no there's no traditional key right as long as you have your phone bluetooth on and you have the app paired you can get in and unlock it so the uh the rav4 still uses a a key and and you can hold you know a function to turn on the ac during the hot months but it's not as nice as just using the phone all right so i'll agree with you there right but let's look at the differences all right first and foremost this vehicle will do zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds yeah but you got to compare this rav4 to the twice this model twice as quick no because it's 4.4 yeah 4.5 ish yeah still two seconds quicker all right uh so you know that's where the similarities end i know you were going on about how great you have a two roof panel sunroof well look at the sunroof in there the whole roof is a freaking sunroof but glass roof yeah can't open it in the rav4 you can open the front half nor would i actually want to open it why not because they're loud uh and it's unnecessary because look at the interior look how look how scrumptious that interior looks it is very cool yeah look look i mean this is the definition of modern right and yes i do have a volume it's right there knob it does work and i have a massive screen uh and that's also where the similarities end because this car just provides you with a wealth of information you want to go through that screen you're better at the time once you go through the screen and i'll open up the passenger door and you show them all the info it provides you in terms of how it's using energy so come on this way in and by the way before you do that i got plenty of back seat room look at this that's my driving position so i'm going to sit down where i drive and look tons of headroom you know tons of leg room tons is bold dad headroom legroom not so much but there's plenty of room back here you know and with this being a model y basically think of it as a either tall or pregnant model three and i've got an electric tailgate i have more room i think in the back than tommy's uh rav4 it's just enormous so um you know room-wise and utility-wise you know i think this one actually takes the cake but here's another place where they're very different so tell me why don't you go over the uh infotainment and all the things that this vehicle will tell you well first of all i do agree with you that the interior design is beautiful it is very very very cool very art museum like in here piano black everywhere which just gets covered in fingerprints oh i can just feel the commenters getting grumpy look at those fingerprints and also sketch scratches as well but when it's clean it looks really nice and then of course the center of the vehicle is dominated by this massive screen and this has every control in it so climate controls for example are right down here uh even the air vents i mean you don't even get to choose where the air flows you have to uh do it all digitally here it's very cool like it's very easy to i shouldn't say it's easy to use it's very fun to use but when you're on the road you know focusing on driving you know adjusting air like this can be in some cases a little bit sketchy now my dad is very proud of the energy displays in here and there are pretty good energy displays you can see what's going on over various time ranges from 5 to 30 miles you can see instant range average range the toyota does have systems in the center screen where you can monitor you know power inputs and outputs but it's it's nowhere near as effective as the tesla screen so i do agree with that uh one thing you do have to get used to in the model y is you don't have a gauge cluster in front of you you have to glance over a little bit and your speed is displayed up here where it says p but the amount of technology in this is is really mind-blowing i mean not only do you have some of the best navigation in the in the business you also have internet connectivity you also have a full suite of applications uh if you're charging for example i can boot up netflix or youtube or hulu i can watch uh stuff as i'm waiting at the supercharger i can also uh stream music through spotify right on this display here no apple carplay so tesla doesn't work with apple in that same way no physical knobs for adjusting volumes or tuning you have to go to the steering wheel but for a passenger obviously not going to reach the steering wheel infotainment wise i do agree with my dad i like the tesla a little bit more i think it's more fun to use but every day that toyota is easier to get used to especially if you've just driven uh you know gasoline cars your whole life now i'm not so sure i agree with storage capacity between the two i think the rav4 might be more useful in the trunk how much room do you have in the front yeah let's show them that check this out yeah because i'm not uh or this this tesla isn't carrying around an extra engine yeah look at that a lot more utility that is pretty cool that is very cool i i agree with you on that towing capacity um i think i have to look at the numbers three and a half three thousand actually three thousand on the y oh yeah i think the rav4 prime is five it could be i have to double check that seems too much it might be lower but i think it's it might be very similar if you guys know let us know in the comments below so look here's the bottom line um tesla is a technology company learning how to be a car company i think toyota is a car company learning how to be a technology company okay right i mean you look you look at the displays you look at the technology in both right and that's kind of sonic the hedgehog right we're into that uh level of uh technology right i'm telling you like 90s sega sonic yeah is that what you're talking about yeah yeah okay yeah and this is you know pick the latest and greatest uh computer game of you know let's call this uh i don't know what's the latest greatest game you were talking about angry birds oh my goodness it's old what's that um what's that game i used to play that was super high graphic anyway um and and the cool thing is that toyota is learning how to be a technology company and finally for the first time they've actually embraced i think not just hybrid because you know they kind of invented the hybrid synergy drive yeah but they've actually embraced true electrification and you can see the potential in what toyota is doing with the rav4 that they bring that to a bigger audience with bigger batteries then tesla's going to have some you know looking over children has to do right now tesla of course you know is both in the forefront in terms of its kind of reputation and uh its technology but with the rav4 prime toyota has fired a very serious shot across tesla's bow i think it's a different audience i don't if you're a tesla guy you're not going to look at a toyota rav4 prime i think you might a tesla people that you know you could drive that thing on electricity all day long i did basically you you could drive it to work and back and if you run out of juice you know the engine kicks on for a little bit and then you come home you charge it up and drive it all electric again but an elon musketeer is not going to go in and uh and buy a toyota bus i think if you're a normal person looking to get into the world of electrification this is a better option in so many ways and i think you'll quickly find with 42 miles of range you're never gonna get into the gas engine on an everyday basis i mean some people might but i think the average person commuting like like even you did during the week with this car we very rarely ever touch the gas engine yeah but i did drive it up to the mountains and you know i quickly ran out of range and then you had another 540 miles to drive on gasoline only and then of course you know there's a fact that um this is you know much more performance oriented and that is much more off-road if i want to go off-road i would take that and by the way you just did a video for tfl off-road where you took it up tombstone hill so uh go over to tfl offroad when you know you're feeling off-roady and check out that video yeah so if it were your money i think both of them will buy it yeah we're both biased on the tfl scale lisa you got to compare at least you got to compare base model yeah i know why yeah to this rav4 it's a it's a tough decision tommy i would go i think toyota i really do think this is something special it's so quick not i mean not not that quick but better made i think easier to use every day with knobs and buttons um but i i just can't wait to see what happens when toyota finally does a full electric because if this is anything to suggest what it'll be like it's gonna be amazing how about you you know um since you can't buy the toyota it's only five thousand i'm gonna go with the tesla i know that's kind of a cop-out but it's true by the way guys if you like our t-shirts and you want to support the team click on the link below and get yourself some as always this is roman yup and tommy check out tflcar.com for the latest and greatest in new car and new electric reviews see you guys next time ciao

Channel: The Fast Lane Car

Views: 539,391

Keywords: toyota rav4 prime, toyota rav4 prime review, 2021 toyota rav4 prime, 2021 toyota rav4 prime review, rav4 prime, rav4 prime review, rav4 prime price, toyota rav4, rav4 prime toyota, 2020 toyota rav4 prime, toyota rav4 prime 2021, toyota rav4 prime interior, rav4 prime 2021, 2021 toyota rav4 prime msrp, 2021 toyota rav4 prime plug-in hybrid, rav4 prime test drive, rav4 prime vs rav4 hybrid, rav4 hybrid vs rav4 prime, model y, tesla model y, ev vs hybrid

Id: 8kDQvycMpmg

Length: 20min 39sec (1239 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/hitssquad]

16:55:

• Tesla is a technology company learning how to be a car company.

• Toyota is a car company learning how to be a technology company.

[u/tech240guy]

Both are exciting vehicles. The hybrids are bridging the gap to full electrification. Even my older parents in their 60s, who normally prefer gas cars, are considering plug in hybrids and electric cars after driving my prius for 8 years.

Infotainment and interior interface both hit different markets. I struggled very badly to even teach my mom how to use her Iphone, so the Tesla screen is a big no-no. My heavy asian accent drives google voice bonkers. 🤣

In terms of potential, I really can see Tesla improving as a car company more readily than Toyota as a technology. Car manufacturing engineering is pretty established (matured?) and can be replicated. Not only that, but their market audience is more narrow to allow risks that comes with innovation. Toyota, being more quality based (ty Deming) and wide market, will be slower to take chances and has to slowly innovate not to allienate their customer base.

[u/completefudd]

TLDW?

[u/santhonyl]

I originally had this internal battle on which car I wanted. I figured that with the Rav 4 prime I could still save a ton of money on fuel because my commute is exactly 40 miles. What I was basing it on was the fact that a tesla can get a 320 mile range with a 75 kw battery. Not thinking that cars are all different I figured that even in summer, at .29 kwh in California that it would equate to roughly 2.50 for a full charge. What I didn't realize is that if you do the math, the Prime gets 42 miles on a 18.1kw battery. That's about $5.20 for a full charge in the summer. Chargers around town cost around .35 a kwh making a 42 miles drive around $5. That's about double gas. I know that the Toyota builds an incredible car in reliability, but my hopes was to get a car that uses 0 gas ever. I think it's time we started evolving to a cleaner future. So I went with the Tesla. when toyota builds a Corolla, Camry, Highlander, Rav 4 in a full EV mode with a +250 mile range I will for sure dump the Tesla and switch back. I think that the great thing Tesla is doing is showing the Japanese manufacturers that people are craving clean vehicles. And people are willing to buy 500,000 a teslas a year, despite all they cosmetic issues and builds

[u/Whaleblubs]

Really great vid!