At the 26th annual Electric Vehicle Symposium in Los Angeles, Toyota unveiled the latest version of the RAV4 EV, an all-electric SUV. On the surface, things don’t look very good. The car looks, well, you can see how it looks, it’s out of puff after 100 miles and has a charging time of approximately six hours. And yet, it has a base price of $49,800.
So you have to ask yourself, why would you buy one? Well, by buying one of these you’ll be marked as an extremely boring green man. After all, you went on and bought an electric SUV. If you have a Prius at home and want something even greener for the weekends, the RAV4 EV is a nice choice.
The performance is not that shabby either. Toyota RAV4-EV has an output of 154 HP (115kW), does 0 to 60mph in 8.6 seconds (7 seconds in Sport mode) and has a top speed of 85 mph.
The new model also comes with re-styled the front bumper, upper and lower grill, side mirrors, rear spoiler, and under body design to maximize air flow around the vehicle. So the aerodynamics are better – at 0.30 Cd, RAV4 EV achieves the lowest coefficient of drag of any SUV in the world – but it’s not exactly a looker.
You also get the Entune as standard, featuring navigation, telematics, and EV drive information and settings designed specifically for the RAV4 EV, as well as AM/FM radio, Bluetooth streaming audio, and USB port with iPod connectivity. The dash display color illuminates red when the vehicle is operating in sport mode and blue in normal driving mode.
2013 Toyota RAV4 Electric is a good EV. It’s just that 50 grand price tag that doesn’t make much sense.
Here’s are two clue’s to the success of the Prius and the all-electric Leaf (at least hear in California)
1. You could get in the commuter lane even if you were the only person in the car (no longer true for the Prius, but now true for all-electrics).
2. They looked just a bit odd. This is an absolute requirement. The hybrid Ford Escape came out at about the same time as the Toyota Prius. But it looked exactly like the regular Ford Escape. It is hard to have bragging rights to been ecological when no one can even tell by looking at your car!
It would be like buying a Ferrari that looks exactly like a Toyota Corolla.
This is the perfect soccer Mom car. Drive kids to school, pick them up and drive them to soccer practice, drive home, charge at night. No gas, no pollution.
Of course for $50k, that’s a wealthy soccer Mom. What better way to show off that wealth then to drive this car?
It sure is ugly and costly. Toyota will have to do better to convince anybody. Only diehard Toyota fans will buy this