Featured 2024 Toyota RAV4 Prime vs. Prius Prime: Which Plug-In Hybrid Is the Better Toyota?

skimmed through it, kind of superficial. seems to me if you're comparing in the segment, there needs to be more about the competing models

 

Curious that the article didn't provide some writing about availability? At this point Toyota's PR department is entirely out of sync with what they're actually able to sell and produce. It's as if they think making false claims that they are selling these new models to save the death of their reputation, yet if you actually want to buy one, expect to wait for years.

Based on all the major recalls Toyota is doing right now, combined with how hard it has been to buy their best cars in recent years, this article is kind of like debating which car you can't have that you would want if you could actually have one. Toyota is doomed the next time the global economy takes a major hit.

 

I truly dumb review. Both are great vehicles for their intended purpose. Try to take an old dishwasher to the dump in a Prius. Try to take 4 big golfers and their cart bags to the local golf course. Both things I've done with a Rav4 format. OTOH for commuting with one driver or even a passenger, the fastback form factor works fine and gets better MPG and battery efficiency.

But the review never considers anything beyond a one driver and no cargo scenario.

 

You can't take anything in a Rav4 Plugin Hybrid because you can't buy them... It's a fake product... I talked to one guy who's been on a waiting for two years to buy one. And what good are the new models when they won't even make the old models available for purchase. Toyota has become a joke!

 

I must note some of the MT author's lack of attention to detail:

Nope. The RAV4 Prime was launched for MY2021, not 2019. EPA's Fuel Economy Guide reveals no trace of them for MY2019 and 2020. It was announced in late 2019, with sales starting about July 1, 2020, which landed in the middle of the Pandemic.

RAV4 Plug-in Coming In 2020 (Page 4 for deets) | PriusChat

Not anymore. That was true of the 2021 and 2022 models, where 6.6 kW was only a package option in the XSE, the rest getting 3.3 kW. But according to the "Build Your Toyota configurator", all units, including the bare bottom trim, now have the larger 6.6 kW charger.

But even that appears outdated. The current Owner's Manual shows a slight bump up to 3.5 and 7 kW, and I have seen 7 kW printed elsewhere too.

6.6 kW implies 27.5 amps, 7 kW implies 29.17 amps, and I have seen my RAV4 pull 29.x amps, confirming the higher kW rating. And I was actually getting 7.3 kW from a 248V supply that day, according to that EVSE's status monitor.

Under the signaling protocol between charger and EVSE, they communicate a maximum current, not a maximum kW. So when using a charge outlet is wired to 208V instead of 240V, the allowed current is not increased, so power is necessarily decreased.

Look again, they are now available in Washington State. Yes, none were shipped into our state its first few years, all the local owners I chatted up had purchased theirs out of state, mostly from the East Coast. But after the original federal incentive ended in 2022 and Oregon's in-state incentive ended in early 2023, cooling initial demand, Toyota starting shipping them into our state about June 2023. After four years of waiting, opportunity called me this February and I had mine a week after putting down a deposit.

Now, Toyota's Inventory page shows a greatly increased supply even since I bought.