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

With GM's oil monitoring system, the Volt could go up to two years between oil changes. At that time, the engineers felt it best to replace the oil in case of any water build up degradation of the old oil.

Toyota doesn't want to pay for an oil monitoring system like GM, Honda, and others use, so they apply the same mileage/time interval regardless of whether the car is an ICE, hybrid, or PHEV.

 

I forget, does Toyota differentiate between severe service and normal. It used to be in some cars normal was long high speed drives where the miles were accumulated rapidly and with the engine temps were always well up in the range for a long period. Severe service was more in town, short trips, longer time to accumulate miles and more occasions where the ICE didn't come up to full temperature and evaporate the moisture in the crankcase off through the EGR system. Obviously, two different oil change intervals triggers were suggested.

I changed at 3-4 months and 3k miles initially just to get any initial debris out of the engine. Thereafter I'll go maybe 6k intervals where the Toyota recommendation is 10k. While 90% of my miles are 55-75 MPH, 90% of my trips are like today. 4 miles and stop, half mile and stop, half mile and stop, 3 miles and home.

 

There might be a foot note for a shorter interval for severe duty like taxi service, but the obvious call for a sooner oil change is when 5w20 is used instead of 0w20. That is at 5000 miles from the change to 5w20.

 

Can anyone find any technical details?

I'm specifically interested in EV-mode 0-60 and rated output power, tank capacity, charger rating (16A or 32A), and rear-wheel assist system rating.

 

The RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid, Toyota’s new hybrid flagship

A little extra info in the news release on the European side, like the battery is cooled by A/C refrigerant as well as having a hot water circuit for the heat pump.

Looks like cargo room is about 60L (slightly more than 2 cu ft) less than the hybrid RAV4 or about as much as the old (2018) RAV4 hybrid and top speed in EV is 135 k/h (83 mph).

Edit: Unlike the HiHy or CoHy there is no front wheel drive only version. It’s AWD-I standard.
Unsupervised!

 

The release says the hot water circuit is the same as the hybrid. I'm taking that to mean the regular engine coolant heater for the cabin. Unless the hybrid has a hot water circuit for something else.

 

More interesting is what can be gleaned from the pictures. They moved the Mode button to the steering wheel. And it the EV Auto button is now EV/HV Auto. Hopefully they fixed that so you don't have to floor it to get the engine to come on. It is the Anti-Prius in that it has a big screen and buttons. I also like they have an EV Ratio readout.

 

I've owned my Prime for almost 3 years now, and I've never had it in EV-auto. I can't see what purpose it serves.

 

It was provided for those with concern that EV power alone may not be enough, since Prius Prime was the first Toyota plug-in hybrid offering with to-the-floor EV acceleration.

 

I kind of doubt that would work. The time spent starting and reving a cold engine will likely negate the slight power advantage. I've had the engine start in EV mode for this (I can describe the unusual circumstances leading to that) and it caused a substantial hesitation compared to EV-mode or HV-mode alone, and that was on a hot engine.

 

2 aspects come to mind -
1 - you get the dual purpose of heating up the ice which allows for cabin heat & assuring your gas doesn't turn to varnish from not getting used frequently enough, while simultaneously putting less load on the battery pack upon hard acceleration, which saves the charge for the sustained speeds.

2 - less power draw in EV (by using the ice under heave loads) keeps inverter & traction pack cooler, which (sadly) means there's a good chance this system will allow Toyota to keep the air-cooled system that Toyota is known for. Air cooling also makes for a cheaper build, not having to install SAE or CHAdeMO or the need to deal with the ancillary higher temperatures, especially during hot summer long hauls.

Seeing its range is (km converted) 40 miles, I wonder if that's on the European test cycle - which is typically 15% generous - most of the data is in kilometers & the interior has a 240v receptacle. So - other continent's style data would indicate deliveries will be to other continents 1st, rather than 3rd quarter deliveries to the USA.
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It works. Engaging that mode triggers pre-warm in anticipation of needing the engine later. So, there is no delay. It really isn't necessary though, since EV alone is enough power. Again, it's more of a piece-of-mind feature than fulfilling actual need.

 

Doesn't the Prime also have such a read out, but it's just the one from the Prius, so it counts engine off while hybrid mode as EV miles? Hoping such a display on this has been fixed, but Toyota will still have you change the oil at 10k miles.

In Europe, EV Auto is the EV Mode. They have an EV City that seems optimized for lower speeds, but will fire up the engine when the pedal is floored. The blended operation of the PiP didn't go over well in the US, so the Prime has a truly EV only mode here, but the hardware and software still had that third button.

 

I'll bet. I don't even like how likely the Prime is to fire up the engine in EV mode for braking. It's too soon. It should only do that after a long descent, not 10 or 20 seconds.

 

My guess there is that battery temperature is playing a part, and Toyota will be conservative in their approach.

 

It happens far more often when its cold than warm. But I've had it happen after an 8 hour soak at 60 degrees F.

 

Greetings from Finland..our neighbour country Sweden has released pricing information for RAV4 plug in (50 KEUR)
in this that it shows that the pricing starts roughly 8000 EUR higher than Mitsubishi Outlander..but bit hard to compare since price depends so much of the variant. I am currently driving top end variant of Outlander which is approx. 14 K more expensive than base model.

 

Thanks so much for the info. Can you say how much more the base Rav4 plug in will be than the base Rav4 Hybrid?

By the way, my wife and I visited Norway and Finland in October. The new library in Helsinki is amazing.