2016 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid: First Drive

What Is It? 2016 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, an all-wheel-drive compact SUV with two electric motors

Starting Price: $28,370

Competitors: Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid.

Alternatives: Lexus NX Hybrid.

Pros: Standard AWD, largest non-luxury hybrid SUV on the market, excellent
optional safety package.

Cons: Not much more than a generic RAV4, MPG is not good enough.

Would I Buy It With My Own Money? Not a chance.

A few years ago, I got behind the wheel of one of the best cars I’ve ever driven—an all electric Toyota RAV4, which had a motor co-developed with Tesla. Sure, it felt generic and rubbery inside; after all, it was a RAV4, the median car of the modern age. But man, could it go. All day, I scooted around the streets of Newport Beach, beating Mercedes and BMW models out of the blocks at stoplights, leaving their drivers looking stunned. The bland styling didn’t matter; it burned no fuel and had a 113-mile range. I was willing to adopt triplets so I could haul them around to soccer practice all day in that sucker.

And yet that car is gone. Toyota built it to comply with California state regulations, and then it vanished into the mists of history. At dinner last week, a Toyota executive said to me, “I wish we’d been able to sell more of the damn things. People just didn’t want them.” I wasn’t so sure. The electric RAV4 had cost $50,000, certainly pricey, but compared with the ludicrous sticker price Tesla’s placed on its own SUV, that seems like a bargain now.

In its stead, Toyota has brought forth the RAV4 hybrid in the next model year. They say it will account 10 to 15 percent of all RAV4s sold, a number that will certainly be in the 20,000 to 30,000 range, representing a significant industrial commitment, particularly given the struggles of alternative-energy cars to gain a market foothold in this time of low gas prices. So what do those buyers receive for their money? Well, a 2.5 liter, four-cylinder engine, paired with an electric motor and also a nickel-metal hydride battery pack, a complicated powertrain that generates 194 horsepower total. All-wheel-drive comes standard in all models. It will have 1700+ lbs. of towing capacity, and 70+ cubic feet of rear storage, fewer than the non-hybrid but still about segment average.

Basically, this is a standard small SUV that, given Toyota’s reputation for reliability and longevity, will probably last a decade or longer. Toyota offers a very nice suite of safety options these days, with top-of-the-line automatic braking and pedestrian alert systems, though some of those features require a slight upcharge, and only at higher trim levels. But at any trim, the RAV4 hybrid will still only cost $700 more than a non-hybrid. So in that sense, it’s a pretty good deal.

On the other hand, you’re not really getting anything special. The RAV4 is as generic as cars come in terms of styling and materials, inside and out. The inside feels like a big rubber ball—there isn’t a whiff of style or wit or fake luxury—and the outside looks and acts like a generic shell.

Saints help you if you try to take this car off-road. “It’s not like this all-wheel-drive is designed to go rock-crawling,” a Toyota executive admitted at the press conference. If you want to do that in a hybrid, get an XV Crosstrek. The RAV4 is designed for on-road all-weather driving, in an attempt to sate the only question that actually matters to most car writers: How will it handle Detroit winters? It will do fine, offering a safe, generic, adequate ride quality.

But we shouldn’t expect more from drive quality out of a car like this; “performance hybrid” is an obvious oxymoron. However, if you’re paying nearly $30,000 for said hybrid, you should at least get some gas mileage out of the bargain. The RAV4 comes in at 34 city, 31 highway, and 33 MPG combined, which certainly puts it at the top of the CUV segment, but it’s not exactly brave new territory. The Ford Escape Hybrid, now discontinued, was getting close to that five years ago.

The highest trim Limited model of the hybrid comes in at $33,610, before shipping costs. While that’s a segment-sized gap between that and the $50K at which the electric car fetched, it’s not an unbreachable one, especially given the available credits and tax breaks available for electric drivers. After a day driving the RAV4 hybrid in the same part of the world where I’d driven the all-electric version two years earlier, I couldn’t help but think how far Toyota had lowered its sights. This car offered none of the joy of the electric car, keeping only the practicality. It feels like driving the past instead of driving the future.

If you’re going to present a green car, enough with the half-measures. In two years, Toyota has traveled from a revolutionary car to a serviceable one that, despite some nods to green technology, still burns plenty of gasoline. Whether the people want the RAV4 hybrid or not, it will have to do.