Toyota Adds Woodland Edition to RAV4 Hybrid

If the Venn Diagram of your friends has an overlap of people who like all-terrain tires and hybrid powertrains (you may need a magnifying glass to find that sliver), then Toyota has a solution. Enter the RAV4 Hybrid Woodland, an all-wheel-drive machine featuring TRD-tuned suspenders and an efficient four-banger hybrid engine.

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RAV4 Celebrates 25 Years, Toyota Gifts It New Trims

Believe it or not, the ubiquitous RAV4 has been around for two-and-a-half decades, appearing on the scene as a right-sized trucklet available in either two- or four-door guise. Remember when the RAV could be had with a removable roof? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Twenty-five years on, the model has grown in size and cemented itself as a leader in its segment. Fun fact: the original four-door RAV was just 162 inches long, about two feet shorter than a Camry of the day, on a wheelbase of 94.5 inches. For 2022, Toyota has added a couple of extra trims and fiddled with some of its styling details.

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2020 Toyota RAV4 TRD Off-Road Review - Dressed for the Country, Fine in the City

If I told you a popular crossover that had good on-road manners got an off-road treatment, you’d probably think those manners would become a bit rougher around the edges.

In the case of the 2020 Toyota RAV4 TRD Off-Road, you’d be mostly wrong.

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Toyota RAV4 Hybrid Fails the Moose Test in Dramatic Fashion

Sweden’s evasive maneuver test, better known as the moose test, is a brutal simulation of what might happen if your lane was suddenly occupied by a giant mammal and you had to get out of the way in a hurry or prepare yourself to become one with the animal. It also happens to be one of the hardest automotive tests to pass, with a long list of models failing to stay on course at highway speeds. In fact, the whole point of the test is to see how fast a vehicle can run the brief gauntlet without running over traffic cones or flipping itself over.

As a result, the cars that typically perform the best tend to be lightweight road huggers with above-average factory rubber. Meanwhile, crossovers and pickups have had particularly poor showings — with Toyota’s RAV4 embarrassing itself rather badly in 2019 after Stockholm’s Teknikens Värld (one of the European publications that made the test world-famous) showed its stability management system was ill-equipped to handle the course. While Toyota went out of its way to remedy the issue with a software update in Europe, recent testing showed the RAV4 PHEV was back to its old tricks… or lack thereof.

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Fluke? Electrified RAV4 Outsells Normal RAV4

Please don’t send us emails complaining about the use of the word “normal” in a headline. Yes, the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid is still a RAV4. Yes, it has every right to exist, and it makes its parents proud, each and every day.

Especially lately, given that the electrified version of the country’s top-selling compact crossover outsold its conventional sibling in June. Not that the hybrid RAV4 was a sales slug to begin with.

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Toyota Prices Its RAV4 Prime, the Crossover With a Plug

By bestowing a name once associated with the Prius on its top-selling RAV4 crossover — while adding beefed-up electric motors, battery pack, and charging port for good measure — Toyota catapulted the compact CUV’s power and price.

For those looking to get off the line in a hurry while using less fuel, what kind of pocketbook pain awaits them in a new RAV4 Prime?

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2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid Review - Second Glances, Second Chances

When I first drove the newest generation of Toyota’s popular RAV4, I was lukewarm on the hybrid model. I liked the previous-gen hybrid better. At the time, I wrote that the best new RAV4, in this reviewer’s opinion, is the Adventure trim.

I stand by that statement, but I also think, upon further reflection, that I was a bit too harsh on the hybrid.

A week’s worth of time with a vehicle will do that. Sometimes week-long loans expose flaws that aren’t apparent in the stage-managed environs of a press junket, and sometimes it’s the other way around.

This is an example of the latter.

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Toyota, Aka Hybrid King, Storms Into New Year

We told you late last year how the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid is the hybrid the Toyota Prius wishes it could be. The two models have essentially swapped positions, with eco-minded American consumers now eschewing the pius hatch in favor of the brawnier image and accommodating cabin of the gas-electric compact CUV.

It brings to mind this morning’s QOTD, frankly.

End-of-year sales starkly illustrated the diverging paths of these two models. This week, the automaker is basking in more good sales news, both for hybrids and conventional vehicles. On the electrified front, at the very least, there’s good reason for Toyota to be very optimistic about 2020.

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2019 Toyota RAV4 Review - Half a Million Buyers Can't Be Wrong

Well, maybe the crowd can’t always be trusted. Over the last two hundred-plus years, there have been more than a few instances where our plurality voting system has yielded suboptimal victors in statewide and nationwide elections alike.

I’ve promised before that I’d stay away from politics here, so I’m not getting any more specific than that. I’m sure I’d piss off someone who doesn’t feel like hearing my thoughts on Franklin Pierce.

Anyhow, in 2019 Toyota pushed nearly half a million of these compact crossovers out the doors, making the 2019 Toyota RAV4 the fourth best-selling passenger vehicle in America — and if you exclude half-ton pickups from each of the Detroit Three, the best selling vehicle, period. But why?

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Kentucky Kicks Off Production of Toyota RAV4 Hybrid

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK) has announced the start of production of the new RAV4, the best selling vehicle in America that isn’t a pickup. Officially, TMMK is handling the hybrid version while other sites — like Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada (TMMC) — takes care of the non-hybridized crossover.

Considering the RAV4 Hybrid just had its best sales year on record, moving 92,525 units in 2019, Toyota’s probably feeling pretty good about its decision. Total U.S. deliveries of the RAV4 hit 448,068 last year, marking another sales record for the brand. The redesigned models (introduced late in 2018) are already everywhere, making one grateful that they don’t necessitate the same cordial acknowledgement expected from motorcyclists and Jeep Wrangler owners. Your arm would be exhausted before making it out of the driveway.

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Drinking Problem: Owners Cry Foul Over Toyota RAV4 Hybrid Gas Tank

Buyers of the revamped-for-2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid seem pleased with their vehicle’s upgraded fuel economy, but ask them about range, and you’re liable to get an earful.

In an unusual development not often associated with non-EVs, RAV4 Hybrid owners have begun complaining about lackluster driving distance — an issue that stems from the model’s redesigned gas tank.

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The Toyota RAV4 Hybrid Is Now, by Far, Toyota's Best-selling Hybrid in America, Easily Outselling the Prius in 2019

You weren’t crazy. In 2000, when the Toyota Prius first arrived in the United States only slightly behind the Honda Insight, it wasn’t unreasonable for you to wonder whether the odd little duck had a future. And to be fair, it didn’t. It wasn’t until Toyota launched a new generation of the Prius as a more practical liftback for MY2004 that a hybridized future appeared plausible.

With little in the way of competition, Toyota sold 107,897 copies of the Prius in the U.S. in 2005. That made the Prius more popular than the Volkswagen Jetta and Mazda 3; more popular than the Toyota RAV4, as well. By 2012, Toyota had expanded the Prius family to include a plug-in, a subcompact Prius C, and a Prius V wagon. The result: U.S. Prius sales peaked at 236,655 units in 2012.

And then, for the Prius, it all fell apart. Half a decade later, total Prius sales were less than half that strong. In 2019, Toyota is tracking toward fewer than 70,000 U.S. Prius sales, the worst year for the nameplate since 2004.

Yet Toyota is on a pace for its hybrid family to earn roughly 226,000 sales in 2019. Granted, those aren’t 2012 levels. And selling at that level does require an array of hybrid options. But regardless, it’s clear Toyota has found its Prius replacement. As the Prius’s star fades, the RAV4 Hybrid is now Toyota’s primary hybrid volume driver.

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2019 Toyota RAV4 First Drive - Choose Adventure Time

The 2019 Toyota RAV4 wouldn’t, at first glance, be my first choice for a run down famed California Highway 1 from just south of Monterey to the famed Bixby Bridge and back.

It probably wouldn’t be yours, either.

So I was pleasantly surprised when a mid-morning coastal ride in the RAV4’s Adventure trim showed me something I’d not seen from a RAV4 before — a personality. Not to mention on-road manners that were quite good by crossover standards. I already had the review written in my mind before I even swapped seats with my drive partner. Before long, however, I was reminded that snap judgments are often wrong.

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Nissan Finds the 2018 Rogue Hybrid, Gives It a Sticker Price

The crossover Rogue Hybrid appeared last year, teaming a 2.0-liter engine and 30kW electric motor that made 176 net horsepower and worked in concert to achieve the magical 35 mpg figure. For what it’s worth, the regular Rogue makes 170 horses out of its 2.5-liter inline-four. We feel confident your day has been enriched with this critical information.

Nissan has now announced pricing for the 2018 model, along with a few tech updates. The sticker jumps northward a few dollars and is similar to its chief rival, the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid — but with one significant difference.

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Toyota Wants More Dudes Buying the RAV4, Along With Everyone Else

The RAV4 has quickly become Toyota’s most important vehicle. While the Corolla still trumps it in overall global volume, the small crossover has made a ridiculous amount of headway over the past decade. Prior to the recession, domestic sales of the RAV4 just barely surpassed 70,000 units per year. Then, after the introduction of the model’s third generation in 2006, volume suddenly doubled — progressing to 2017’s all-time high of 407,594 deliveries.

Still, Toyota thinks it can further broaden the model’s appeal. It wants to see more men behind the wheel of the redesigned 2019 model that debuted at the New York International Auto Show last week. The recipe involves a more butch design, added power, an upgraded all-wheel drive system, and new trim levels giving a nod to sporting aspirations. Meanwhile, an updated interior provides more space for manspreading and big rubbery knobs some gentleman find totally irresistible.

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  • Kwik_Shift Hyunkia'sis doing what they do best...subverting expectations of quality.
  • MaintenanceCosts People who don't use the parking brake when they walk away from the car deserve to have the car roll into a river.
  • 3-On-The-Tree I’m sure they are good vehicles but you can’t base that on who is buying them. Land Rovers, Bentley’ are bought by Robin Leaches’s “The Rich and Famous” but they have terrible reliability.
  • SCE to AUX The fix sounds like a bandaid. Kia's not going to address the defective shaft assemblies because it's hard and expensive - not cool.
  • Analoggrotto I am sick and tired of every little Hyundai Kia Genesis flaw being blown out of proportion. Why doesn't TTAC talk about the Tundra iForce Max problems, Toyota V35A engine problems or the Lexus 500H Hybrid problems? Here's why: education. Most of America is illiterate, as are the people who bash Hyundai Kia Genesis. Surveys conducted by credible sources have observed a high concentration of Hyundai Kia Genesis models at elite ivy league universities, you know those places where students earn degrees which earn more than $100K per year? Get with the program TTAC.