The RAV-4 PHEV Topic

[SageBrush]

I haven't driven a Tesla but don't they ONLY do regen on one pedal driving? That is, if you hit the brake, it never uses regen?

No

 

[cwerdna]

I haven't driven a Tesla but don't they ONLY do regen on one pedal driving? That is, if you hit the brake, it never uses regen?

I think that was only true on the original Roadster.

 

[GRA]

Re subsidies, without them, perks like SO HOV stickers, free parking and no tills, and government mandates or ZEV zones, BEV sales would similarly dry up. All AFV sales remain dependent on one or more of the above, except those sold to people for whom transportation value for the dollar is of little or no concern.

BS and off topic. Bicycle has better "transportation value per dollar", how many people are cycling to work?

In places where they can't afford cars or public transport, and walking takes too long, lots of them. As the U. S. has a high median income, more people can afford to drive (and we can afford the roads and other support infrastructure to make driving quick and convenient).

Transportation is more than getting from A to B. iMiev was probably the cheapest car new car to own for many in the PNW in 2011, and did many sell? No.

What you're really saying is that people who can afford to buy cars do so for more than one reason, many of them unrelated to utilitarian transportation. I've never disputed that. OTOH, I suspect a lot of Corollas were bought in the PNW in 2011. Do you suppose that people didn't buy iMiEVs because they imposed too many limitations on the vehicle's flexibility? At the time, if I had needed a car just for commuting, an iMiEV might have been fine, provided I had somewhere to charge it. But I'd need another car for every trip beyond its capabilities, which is virtually all of them in my case. And given the dearth of public charging in 2011, an iMiEV would be inadequate for most trips for most people.

BTW, my ICE is rated at 27 HWY (25 under the current test regimen), and I normally get 28-30 on trips, which constitute 90-95% of my usage.

Almost the reverse of the average American usage. 85% trip miles under 100 miles.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig4_5.cfm

GRA should drive an ICE.

Yup, or a low-AER (~25 mile) PHEV, or (given adequate fueling infrastructure) an FCEV. At the moment a BEV represents a collosal time suck and route restriction on my trips, even if the charging infrastructure were 100% reliable as gas stations essentially are. I went 3 for 11 in my attempts to activate QCs on my recent Bolt trip, and would have been stranded 200+ miles from home if I hadn't had access to L2s that didn't require activation.

So back to PHEVs. They make sense if you have long trips beyond easy BEV infrastructure AND have lots of short trips in battery range. Your four yearly trips to Sleeping Buffalo, Montana will be just as easy as if you had an ICE, and you daily trips will be just as nice as if you had a BEV.

A BEV would be better if you have lots of short trips and few trips beyond range into places with reasonable BEV infrastructure.

Hydrogen might make sense for long distance trucking.

The cheapest way of getting there is likely walking, bicycle or bus.

With the exception of limiting H2 to trucking, we agree.

 

[goldbrick]

FWIW, I just put a $500 deposit down on a 2021 Rav-4 Prime. The car will be arriving in Rhode Island of all places in May. I'm flying out with my wife and we're going to drive it back to CO, with multiple stops to see friends and family along the way. The plan is to keep this car and the 2017 S Leaf. The Rav-4 is supposed to have a 40 mile EV range which will be plenty for my daily commute.

And it will go anywhere. which is something that actually does matter to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxsEKbP7J8

 

[jjeff]

FWIW, I just put a $500 deposit down on a 2021 Rav-4 Prime. The car will be arriving in Rhode Island of all places in May. I'm flying out with my wife and we're going to drive it back to CO, with multiple stops to see friends and family along the way. The plan is to keep this car and the 2017 S Leaf. The Rav-4 is supposed to have a 40 mile EV range which will be plenty for my daily commute.

And it will go anywhere. which is something that actually does matter to me.

!
I've had my $500 deposit down for about 6-months. Last I checked they were still over a year out at least my dealer isn't marking it up, possibly why their wait is so long?
Oh, I passed a local Toyota dealership today and their lot was FULL of Rav4's(of course not Primes) and about a mile from the dealership was a closed Fudruckers, whose lot was FULL of Rav4's and other Toyota vehicles, if only any of them were Primes.......

 

[goldbrick]

^Good to know. The guy told me it was on a boat from Japan, but then he is a car dealer He said he'd get me an update when he knows more......hmmm, this is starting to feel a little weird. I'll post here when I know more. On the other hand, the car has a color, options, etc and there were only a few available. Worst case, I figure I can sell it for a profit since I'll be getting $10k in tax credits and supply < demand at this point.

 

[jjeff]

^Good to know. The guy told me it was on a boat from Japan, but then he is a car dealer He said he'd get me an update when he knows more......hmmm, this is starting to feel a little weird. I'll post here when I know more. On the other hand, the car has a color, options, etc and there were only a few available. Worst case, I figure I can sell it for a profit since I'll be getting $10k in tax credits and supply < demand at this point.

As long as the boat doesn't need to go through the Suez canal I guess since he said was actually on a boat, they can't blame it on the backlog of semiconductors. I wish you luck, it really seems like a nice vehicle and I hope its able to replace both our older Prius and one of our 24kwh Leafs.

 

[rmay635703]

RAV4 Prime is a compliance vehicle

The vast majority of allocations go to the Northeast states and California

If you check Priuschat a large number of Prime buyers have bought theirs in Rhode Island because they are $5-10 grand less expensive

 

[denwood]

I was decidedly negative on the whole concept of hybrids (too complex with two systems), but I must admit Toyota's use of two electric motors in the transaxle to accomplish the roles of CVT transmission, starter and alternator, combined with an Atkins cycle engine is pretty brilliant.

If I was shopping for a hybrid, the RAV4 Prime would be number one on my list. Most manufacturers are getting a lot better at open diff braking, as you can see in the video above. It does give you a pseudo "fake" locking diff. (by using ABS to brake the spinning wheel on each axle) which is plenty fine for 99.9% of how folks use these cars.

 

[goldbrick]

I was negative on hybrids as well, since it seems in some ways like the worst of both worlds. You're hauling around the weight of the batteries and motors all the time and you have the downsides (and upsides) of an ICE vehicle.

What pushed me over the edge was that my wife wanted to buy another Subaru (ugh) and I'm just tired of working on them. I don't think there will be an available 4WD EV that I'd buy in the next 5 years. This car can be EV only for most of my driving but then go across the country, up to the ski slopes, out to the desert, whatever as well. It's supposed to get 38 mpg as an ICE and 42 mile range as an EV. Those specs work for me.

Plus I'll be getting all the tax credits and the price was about MSRP on a vehicle that will be very hard to find for at least a year or two, due to a slow rollout and now the chip shortages so I feel like I have very low risk on it.

 

[goldbrick]

I drove my Rav4 Prime home from the shipper yesterday. I have to say that I love it and I'm impressed. It's easy to forget you're driving on EV power alone unless you really pay attention. My biggest concern now is that I need to burn the gas and circulate all the ICE fluids on a routine basis. The car will probably satisfy 80-90% of my driving needs and I'm concerned the remaining driving won't be sufficient to keep the ICE systems happy. One thing I've already done, is use the ICE engine to charge the battery. I know this isn't as efficient as a direct EV charge but it does allow me to run the engine if it needs it.

I have some registrations issues to deal with since the car was bought out of state but once that's settled I'll probably take a road trip in it. I'm vaccinated and need to get out of town!

 

[knightmb]

My biggest concern now is that I need to burn the gas and circulate all the ICE fluids on a routine basis.

I would say, once a month, run the battery down so the ICE has to kick in. Good way to keep the gas from going bad and giving the ICE some exercise so it doesn't crude up inside.

 

[goldbrick]

^ That's the plan but I'll probably do it more often than monthly. And then I need to make sure I'm driving somewhere that the ICE will have time to fully warm up. I'll also probably keep the gas tank less than half-full since the range of the ICE is about 500 miles on a full tank and it would take me forever to use that up unless I'm on a road trip. Different things to thing about but after having a 30kWh Leaf for 4 years I'm used to this kind of planning.

 

[jjeff]

I'm jealous, still probably a year before ours may come in. Where did you get yours, I remember someone talking about RI? was that you?
So the RAV4 doesn't have something automated that burns off the fuel? I seem to remember the Volts had something like that, although I seem to remember some weren't happy about it as they wanted the vehicle to stay in EV mode all the time but when it sensed the gas was old? it would burn it off. I always wondered how it knew if the gas was old......
The person using our Rav4 will probably a couple times/week exceed the EV range and run on the ICE so it probably won't be an issue for us, I suppose one could always try and always fill up on non ethanol fuel but in my area it's extremely hard to find as basically all fuel has 10% ethanol, to keep the price of corn high! so just regular gas is around 50 cents/gallon more than the run of the mill 10% ethanol.

 

[goldbrick]

Yep, I got mine in RI. Used up some airline miles that were languishing and did a trip out East.

I'm still learning how the car operates but apparently it will use the ICE in HV mode under certain circumstances. Or so I'm told. I have only driven it home from the shipper and then to work so far since I have some title/registration issues to deal with. My first impression was that it is EV only until the SOC drops low enough but maybe I just wasn't in the right driving mode. That is why I forced it into the 'charge' mode which runs the ICE to propel the car and charge the battery (stops at 80% SOC, nice!). I'll update more when I get it figured out.

 

[GRA]

Just saw my first RAV4 Prime in the wild today, or at least the first that I've identified, as it had SO HOV stickers. It's surprising to me that it took this long, given the demand around here and my state being at the head of the queue. Just to show how weird the lack of sightings is, I see a Mirai pretty much every day, and once saw 2-4 (three were the same color, in the same area over an hour, but on three different streets heading three different directions) in one day.

 

[goldbrick]

I'm up to almost 400 miles on my Rav4 Prime and I am loving it. It's a bit noisier than I expected in ICE mode but that's a nit. I'm 6'3" (used to be 6'4"....) and it's very comfortable for my aging bones. Good visibility, drives well, etc. I'm still in the ICE break-in period so I'm going easy on the gas but I did go up to some friends' cabin for the 4th. I put it in 'charge mode' to charge the battery while driving with the ICE and then switched to EV mode for the last few miles of dirt roads to the cabin. It worked perfectly and being able to crawl slowly up dirt roads on EV power was amazing. It was quiet and the full torque at 0 mph made easing up rough stuff simple and pleasant. I like the flexibility of being able to choose to run the ICE or EV depending on how far I'm going. So far, I've been using the ICE more than I normally would since I want to get through 2 full tanks of gas so I can do a first oil change after about 1000 miles. At this rate, that will probably be September unless I decide to do a road trip, which I don't really want to do until the engine is broken in.

I like it so much I think I'll keep it :mrgreen: The back-up plan was to sell it since they are in short supply here in CO. Since I'm going to keep it, I think I'll get a rear hitch, an auto-dimming mirror and mud-flaps. I also plan to remove all the bling badges, such as 'Plug In Hybrid, AWD' etc, etc.

 

[OrientExpress]

We are up to almost 6000 miles on our R4P XSE with no issues. The last time the car got gas was back in May and currently has an average MPG of 69.3 mpg. We drive it mostly locally with about 2.9 miles/kWh.

 

[jjeff]

I'm up to almost 400 miles on my Rav4 Prime and I am loving it. It's a bit noisier than I expected in ICE mode but that's a nit. I'm 6'3" (used to be 6'4"....) and it's very comfortable for my aging bones. Good visibility, drives well, etc. I'm still in the ICE break-in period so I'm going easy on the gas but I did go up to some friends' cabin for the 4th. I put it in 'charge mode' to charge the battery while driving with the ICE and then switched to EV mode for the last few miles of dirt roads to the cabin. It worked perfectly and being able to crawl slowly up dirt roads on EV power was amazing. It was quiet and the full torque at 0 mph made easing up rough stuff simple and pleasant. I like the flexibility of being able to choose to run the ICE or EV depending on how far I'm going. So far, I've been using the ICE more than I normally would since I want to get through 2 full tanks of gas so I can do a first oil change after about 1000 miles. At this rate, that will probably be September unless I decide to do a road trip, which I don't really want to do until the engine is broken in.

I like it so much I think I'll keep it :mrgreen: The back-up plan was to sell it since they are in short supply here in CO. Since I'm going to keep it, I think I'll get a rear hitch, an auto-dimming mirror and mud-flaps. I also plan to remove all the bling badges, such as 'Plug In Hybrid, AWD' etc, etc.

Remind me what model you got? Must have been a lower-trim to not get the auto-dimming mirror. We went with the mid-trim model but ordered it with a package that got us the heated steering wheel and probably some other things, maybe heated rear seats, I can't remember now. Speaking about breaking yours in, didn't you drive it back from out east, RI maybe? maybe I'm thinking of someone else. We recently got back from CO(Greeley) where we picked up a car not available In MN, a Hyundai Ionic PHEV, which were in plentiful supply in this dealer, of course it was at sticker but not over. I didn't exactly like the idea of driving it back the 900 miles on a car with only 5 miles on the ODO and at 80 MPH through the loong Nebraska but it seemed to handle it OK. As best I could tell the Ionic didn't have an option to "charge the battery" only EV only so we had about 20 miles of EV out of Greeley(batt wasn't fully charged!) and ICE for the next 880 miles with the battery showing 0 miles remaining. I would have really liked to have charged the battery via the ICE so we'd have the last miles on EV but found no way to force it to charge like the Toyotas seem to have.

 

[goldbrick]

I got the SE model which is the lower trim level. It does have a heated steering wheel and plenty of other fancy options but a basic mirror. The auto-dimming mirror is the only thing I wanted from the higher trim level so it wasn't worth the extra $3k for that

I had the car shipped from RI. It was an extra $1100 but I'm too old to drive that far and like you, I didn't want to do an extended road trip on a new car, which coincidentally enough, also had 5 miles on the odometer. I got the car for MSRP so I don't feel bad about the extra money for shipping especially since I'm eligible for both the $7500 federal and $2500 CO state tax perks.