2026 Toyota RAV4

Hi and welcome back to another episode of Talking Cars. I'm Mike Quincy. I'm Alex Nasik, and I'm Mike Monticello. So today we're talking about the redesigned 2026 Toyota RAV4, and here's what you need to know. The RAV4 is offered exclusively with a hybrid powertrain, as well as a plug-in variant, making the RAV4

100% electrified. This is a big car for Toyota over 6 million units sold since 1996, plus the RAV4 is super popular with consumer reports members. We borrowed a plug-in XSE version from Toyota among the top trims, and let's just get right into it. So Alex, what did you like about this new RAV4?

I mean, I think we have to start with the powertrain. This plug-in version specifically is powerful, it's quick, the electric component of it just makes it more direct. When you drive it, the last one was this way, and they've kind of just built on more power and longer EV driving range.

Exactly, and it really makes it a nice driving experience, I think. Yeah, I think really the big thing for me is the ability to drive it like an EV for those first 40 to 50 miles, whatever it ends up being able to do. For me, on the IP, it was saying 45 miles, but it depends a lot on who drove it last, and those kinds of things.

The fact that you're driving it as an EV, meaning super smooth power, and it feels like it has stronger power than it did before, in EV mode, to the point that you're not worried about having to have the gas engine come on to help out, because it really doesn't need it for most situations.

And you don't have any gear shifts, like some PhDVs, you don't have more of a regular transmission, and this doesn't have that. So again, you're having that true kind of EV light, as I think you like to call experience with PhDV, and that's definitely the case here.

They pretty much took the existing Toyota hybrid system, where you have an electrically driven rear axle, and then the front is really, it's not directly connected to the motor, but for all intents and purposes, that's how it feels.

And so when you have that battery charged up, yeah, no gear shifts, not like an example would be Mazda CX 90, for example, they have the motor routed through the 8-speed transmission, so even an EV mode, you're feeling the shifts and all that stuff.

Right, here you don't have that, so it really does feel EV light.

And according to Toyota 324 horsepower, for the plug-in, that's a good boost from the 302, from the previous plug-in RAV4.

But yeah, what got to me is I got into this car with a full tanky gas and a full charge, and it said 630 mile cruising range.

And I'm like, aww, that's it, you signed me up.

I think, too, what's funny about the powertrain is, at one point in Toyota's history, their V6 RAV4 was the quickest model they made.

And I don't know if that's still true, because it supers on sale and things like that.

But at least one of the quicker, more powerful vehicles that they make is now true again with this.

And the thing is, I think we should discuss the charging or not charging your PHEV, but the reality is, that even when the battery runs out,

and you really don't have that help as much anymore, or the ability to drive on full electric at higher speeds,

it still is a wonderful hybrid.

It has plenty of power.

There's a little bit of an EV shove off the line, which again, we always appreciate that in a hybrid or PHEV, because so many vehicles these days have sort of that delay off the line,

whether it's a dual clutch transmission or some turbo lag, and this has none of that, although it does turn the gas engine on very, very quickly.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

But you do know when that engines on, we'll talk about more in the what we don't like, because it is kind of loud.

If you floor it, no longer have a battery charge, you floor it, it responds super quickly, and there's lots of power for passing sounds, right?

So that is, it's just really nice to live with.

Yeah, because even when it doesn't have a charge, or you don't have electric only driving, it has a large enough battery and those motors are bigger than a traditional hybrid,

so there's still enough in reserve, so to speak, to give you that thrust from the electric motors and all that.

So it just really, yeah, makes it a better driving experience.

But I'm glad you brought up the charging aspect, because as good as this thing is with and without a charge, like any plug and hybrid,

you really, to make it worth it, right?

Because this is going to cost more than the regular hybrid, you have to charge it, right?

Charge it as much as you can to take advantage of that all-electric driving.

You're going to get better efficiency, because if you don't, the efficiency, and we'll see when we test it for sure,

but the trend has always been, it's going to be worse in that charge-sustaining motor when you don't have a EV range left.

It's going to be worse than the regular hybrid in terms of actual fuel.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You'll get, you know, I was seeing 32, 33, just I did about 100 miles without a battery charge to see what it would do,

and you know, let's see how it tests, but likely the regular hybrid will do better than that without plugging it in.

Why do you think that owners of plug and hybrids don't regularly plug them in?

First of all, there's a aspect of not really fully understanding plug and hybrids, right?

It happens just anecdotally in my life all the time people are asking, hey, what hybrid, plug and hybrid,

they just don't quite understand the differences, right?

So it's possible that somebody gets into a car that they don't fully understand what it is, right?

Depending on how it's being sold to them.

But then there's also what I think is the just human nature of it all, where it's easy to not plug it in.

The vehicle functions, not like an EV where if you don't, you can't drive it, right?

You still can drive it.

And in this case, it's still a good driving experience.

You pulled your driveway at night.

You've worked all day.

It's raining.

You've got arms full of groceries.

You have to cook dinner for your family.

Am I going to stop and plug it in right now?

I've got to go inside.

And it sounds like a small thing, but that data shows that people might not be.

It's, you know, as humans, I don't want to say we're lazy, but we just don't want to do one more thing.

And it really even when I have an EV and I know I need the charge,

I'm, are you kidding me?

I've got to pull this thing in.

In my case, it's a little bit more of an issue because I don't, my girlfriend's car is in the garage.

Yeah.

And so the charger, you know, I do need to open up the garage and the car sits right outside in charge and all that kind of stuff.

But it just does seem like a weird added, like an added step, even though in the grand scheme of things, it's so minor.

And if you don't plug it in besides the efficiency, which is very important, you're also just losing out on that EV light driving experience,

which is just so much nicer.

Yeah, because it's nice and quiet.

You know, there's very little electric motor wine.

And like I said, pretty good power most of the time.

And dollar for dollar, electricity still costs more, the coach still costs less than gasoline.

In most places.

Yeah, in most places.

Right.

Yeah, now that's, that, that to me would be if you're going to spend the money on the plug and I'm going to plug it.

Yeah, exactly.

You, you say EV light, but which is funny, is that these plug-ins are heavier.

That goes to the efficiency as well.

Right, a lack of efficiency.

If it's heavier than the, that's part of the reason why it gets worse fuel economy.

Yeah.

Because if it's heavier than the hybrid, it's carrying around more weight.

And now when you're not using, when you don't have that battery to work with, that's when your fuel economy goes down.

Because it's simply a heavier vehicle.

And as we, as we, we, we found out from our, our last toy to ref for plug and you used to call the prime.

It's not the prime anymore.

We really pretty much concluded that the extra weight for the, for the plug and improve the ride probably made it a little quieter too.

Do you think Toyota has been able to pull this off with, with the new ref?

Yeah, I think mostly there is one real quick on the, on the power chain before we get on to the ride.

There's one more thing I want to mention that I was personally very excited about.

A lot of plug and hybrids and previous Toyota plug and hybrids or primes had this too.

Basically an onboard function that allowed you to charge the battery up to get more EV range while driving.

You could hit a little button in the Toyota's case.

You would hold down this mode selector button and it would start charging the battery.

And what basically what it does is it drives the engine at a higher speed than it would need to otherwise to start sending electricity into the battery to charge it up.

On the surface, sounds awesome, right?

Because now I don't have to plug it in and do the annoying thing right now.

But it's super misleading because it's going to tank your fuel economy, right?

And that's not always clear.

And it kind of, it can be misleading if people are over using that feature.

They're just going to add insult to injury and start reducing their fuel economy even further.

So in this new version of the RAV4, they actually took that out and look normal AM all for giving people options and more things.

But I think on a technology like this, that's already kind of confusing for certain people.

Removing that's actually a good thing.

First of all, it simplifies the interface.

You're not cycling through so many modes, but don't give them a bad option.

Give them options.

It's not like one of them's bad.

Don't have that as an option.

The way you were describing, it's like you have to go through these menus, a secret mode to charge while you're driving.

And it almost sounded like the secret menu in an outburst or something like that's like,

okay, she didn't know this.

There's this inside information about it.

It was a press and hold of a button, but yes, you did kind of have to know.

But the thing is, it doesn't tell you really what the implications of doing that are.

That's kind of the part of the problem.

So I was personally happy to see it go away.

We'll see how people react to that.

That's good.

Yeah, but anyway, to the ride and the noise, I think, you know, I was pretty happy with both, honestly.

Overall.

Yeah, I was too.

I thought the ride felt to me a little stiffer than the last prime we tested.

And this does have bigger wheels, so that one had 19s.

This one has 20s with a lower aspect ratios, meaning a shorter sidewall.

And so to me, it just felt like there were moments where it felt like a little bit more of a jolt than I remembered on the last prime,

as well as when you get into sort of these, you know, multiple,

small imperfections in a road feels a little brittle-ish over them.

Okay.

Nothing bad, nothing bad.

But also, I think while the car is pretty quiet other than the engine when the gas engine's on,

is that you also get, because of these big tires, you're getting some tire slap over some of those imperfections.

Again, nothing terrible.

Right.

It's just a little more than I remembered on the last one.

You know, that's the downside to going with bigger, bigger wheels.

Yeah, sure.

But I still think it's, for most people, it's good.

Yeah.

It's just, it's always just wanting to see it go a little, just a scotch backward.

Yeah.

I agreed.

I didn't really think it was objectionable at all.

At all, either the ride or the noise levels.

And, dimensionally, the new R4 is identical to the outgoing model.

This vehicle is like perfectly sized for me.

But we work with some folks here at the track that it just didn't feel big enough.

Now, do you think Toyota should have been like all the other automakers, like the new model,

it's bigger, it's wider, it's longer, it's blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

Toyota just said, nah, it's worth more sticking to this.

You think that was a good move?

Personally, I didn't have any issues with the size.

I like the size.

I thought it made it maneuverable.

And I think there are so many options out there, especially when we're talking SUVs that

if you do need something larger, if Toyota doesn't have it for you, someone else does.

There are a lot of great options out there, so I could see the argument.

Absolutely.

But for me personally, the size was absolutely fine.

I didn't feel like I needed more space.

Well, and the reality is a lot of that interior space comes down to wheelbase, right?

Not actual length.

Length.

Length sometimes is just overhang.

Right.

If you look at the wheelbase, 2026, wrap four, 106 inches, CRV, 106 inches, super forest,

or 105 inches.

Yeah, it's right there.

It's right there.

You know, the new Mazda CX5 has 111 inches, so that's a little bit bigger.

But for the most part, it's still right there.

So it's not like it's a lot smaller than the others.

It's pretty much the same size as all the other compact, or most of the other compact SUVs.

And just for clarity, overhang is not the same thing as a hangover.

No, no.

Thank you for clearing that up for all of our work and all of our listeners and viewers.

Okay, so can we move on to the not-so-good parts of this vehicle?

Well, there's a few.

I want to talk about one more thing I really like.

Okay.

Spirit tire.

A temporary spirit tire.

Okay.

And we're seeing this less and less in all vehicles, right?

Not just hybrids, but especially for a PHEV, right?

Which usually there's some more, just some space loss.

They have to figure something out.

Or with a hybrid.

We're just seeing, you know, tires you don't get sort of rough like tires.

And to have a temporary spirit tire in the back of this cargo area, I was really happy to see that.

Which has turned out to sort of be at least anecdotally a deal break for people considering the Subaru Forester hybrid,

which does not have a spare tire.

Or it becomes a deal breaker after they bought the car and they get a full tire.

They don't need a real ride cycle, right?

But a detail like that, I think it's important to consumers to know.

No, certainly.

I was kind of surprised to lift up the floor and see it under there.

A couple of other things for me are before we moved to the negatives are visibility.

I thought it was pretty decent, maybe not as good as a Forester.

But you have pretty upright pillars that are of a reasonable profile.

They mount the mirrors on the doors so you get those kind of visual gaps there.

A lot of these SUVs get a lot worse, the more rearward you go.

Yes, there's a wide-deep pillar like we're used to seeing in these SUVs.

But it's huge third-side window relatively speaking.

Really happy to see that.

So yeah, it's not bad.

That was good.

And blind spot warning and rear chrome.

It's traffic glowing now standard.

So that's also good news.

Yeah.

And then the last thing for me is storage.

I was really happy with like, if you look at the center console of this car,

there's two tiers of storage underneath the screen, yet like the wireless charger and space next to that.

And then you have another kind of tray area under that.

And I don't know, it just worked really well for me to kind of divide up that section.

They're a little deep.

So at one point I left something in the car because it was so far in there.

But yeah.

So I don't know.

Storage was really good.

The flipping center console is a funny thing.

But it was kind of satisfying to use it.

I don't have a use for it personally.

I don't find one.

But the beauty of it is that the driver flips it to get in and it's very easy in them.

Yes.

You can flip it the other way.

But I think we might have a negative or two to talk about it on the negative side.

And it gets to that.

But I mean, the engineering of it is fantastic.

So smart.

Well, and then the whole thing you can take off.

Well, I didn't know that over.

Yeah.

And it's also satisfying in there.

There's some negatives.

We'll talk about it.

But like, you just, I don't know, it works really kind of in a satisfying way

because you could just take it off and kind of smoosh it back down

and it all clicks back into place.

I don't know why.

You've got these storage pockets where you put stuff and you forgot something.

You might get it.

Some cars have to tell you notice if you left your phone in the car.

So you need one that says, Alex, you left your pack of gum and the little bin in front of you.

And your wallet.

And that was kind of a problem.

I just want to talk about two more real quick things that I liked.

The front seats.

I don't love them, but I like them.

I typically, lately, Toyota seats have really been working well for me.

Other than a weird slight bump toward the top of the upper seat back.

But the bolstering is really nice.

We're seeing a lot of seats these days that are pretty flat and they don't really conform to you.

And I thought these were really good.

And of course, I love that microswade.

Tram, the center of the section.

It's soft and it's grippy.

And then just the other thing is I thought the handling's not bad.

The handling's pretty decent.

I really like the steering has like a nice weight to it.

It turns in naturally.

And body roll is kept pretty well under control during regular driving.

So it was not bad, you know.

Definitely agreed on that as well.

Yeah, easy to drive.

Yeah.

All right.

Do we have to talk about negative stuff?

Let's be positive.

Why can't we be positive?

I think we are consumer reports.

And we are among the few publications that we'll talk about stuff that we don't need.

I know.

We'll just have to move on with that.

So listen, Mike, you want to get this out of the way?

Just go ahead.

Yes.

You tell us everything that's terrible about it.

Yeah.

We were just talking before we started the podcast.

We were talking about when we were in middle school and giving presentations.

Do you want to be the first person to go or the last person to go?

Yeah.

And I, in retrospect, I wish I'd always gone first instead of last.

And now is the first day for the rest of your life.

Yeah.

Okay.

So one of my negatives is, and correct me if I'm wrong, Alex.

But when you're in, first of all, it seems to default to EV mode.

Is what it was doing.

If you have a charge, yeah.

Yeah.

Which is fine.

I don't have a problem with that.

Like the last one.

I think a smarter choice would be that it defaults to some kind of an auto mode

that prioritizes EV while it has it.

Yeah.

And the reason I say that is because in its full EV mode, if you floor it,

it does not turn on the gas engine.

Yeah.

And while that's fine most of the time, and actually can be a positive in the sense

that a lot of PhDVs, you're trying, you know, there's either a,

you're either watching a little like a dial for when the gas engine is going to come on

and you're maybe trying to keep the gas engine off because it's quieter without it.

Or you're waiting for the, you're feeling for the, the kick down, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And so here, you can floor it and you don't have to worry about the gas engine coming on.

On the one hand is great.

But when I got down to around 20 miles of battery charge left,

and I thought, well, I'm going to try this, do this passing maneuver on this legal passing maneuver.

Legal.

And it was on.

I was warned.

We have to say these was a hill on a two lane road.

And I was trying to pass a car and a truck.

And it was the slowest pass I've ever done in my life.

And so I ended up hitting the mode button.

And it switched it to the auto mode, which apparently I should have hit it twice

because it still didn't give me full power somehow.

I don't know what it did, but it gave me more power.

But not the full.

It didn't feel like the full power.

The secret menu didn't out.

So that was, that was disappointing.

I can see why you would do it.

If it's a dangerous situation, which in case I sort of put myself into that situation,

but if it makes you think that it can do that, I think that's legitimate.

I think when a car says it has certain amount of horsepower,

you want to be able to tap into that at any time for any reason.

Yeah.

And to your point, Mati, if you had to deliberately put it in the EV mode,

you're making at least more of a conscious choice.

Right.

I realize I'm not going to have a full power here.

I mean, it's not a reason to not buy the car.

It's not.

It's something to be aware of.

Absolutely.

And we'll test it.

We've been testing the zero to 60 performance of these PHEVs in their EV only mode

to really see like how usable is it without that gas engine coming on?

We'll do that same thing here.

The Toyota doesn't like this.

This is tend to be pretty good.

But it would be interesting to...

It would be interesting to...

Adding to Hill to the problem is different.

Adding to Hill, yeah.

And how much maybe the power reduced with it having much less range.

Right.

So the automakers decide what the default should be.

Yeah.

I think is a legitimate...

Because it has that shadow mode that you're talking about, right?

Right.

It could default to that.

Right.

Alex, naughty list.

Let's go.

Yeah.

Okay.

So this one's a little weird because I might be the outlier.

So I think I'm looking at our logbook right now.

And we call it everyday usability.

But controls, displays, all that, and the buttons and the car.

Seems like most people are kind of more unlike the neutral to negative side.

I didn't mind it so much, but there are definitely some very concrete negatives

that we can talk about.

One is the climate controls, right?

They moved all of the climate...

Most of the climate controls into the screen.

Which is not great, right?

I mean, we're much prefer buttons and dials for things that you change frequently,

while driving, right?

And climate is definitely one of those.

There are still some.

Like you have toggles for temperature, but instead of a dial,

now there are these like flush, kind of shiny black plastic buttons

that are harder to see and reach for.

Still has a volume knob, things like that.

But I think overall, I was happy to see Toyota listen to some of things that we've pointed out.

Other, you know, certainly customers have pointed out with like the UI of the center screen.

I think they made some really big improvements there.

But yeah, overall, they're still moving to a direction that's, you know,

more stuff in screens and things like that.

Which, you know, is not going to be as easy for some people.

Right, and kind of, you know, for clarification.

We talk about screens.

There's like the center screen.

But then there's the driver instrument to screen.

It's not just dials and gauges anymore.

It's like a whole screen in there.

The fact that the car only has two is actually, you know, something.

And that was one of my biggest problems with it.

Toyota didn't listen to our criticism of the driver's instrument screen and the complicated menus

and all of the options.

And one of the comments in the logbook, which I loved, was the number of configurations is nauseating.

I loved that.

And totally apropos here.

I mean, I will say they, so before they, you could basically like pre-configure

or make presets of three different screens, right?

But you had to sit there and play the Game Boy and make it all happen ahead of time.

And then while you were driving, you could only select those three presets you've made previously.

Here, they've made the presets for you, if that makes sense.

You're like cycling through different gauge views, but there are a ton of them.

And it's kind of visually overwhelming.

So some of it's been simplified, while other aspects of it, maybe not so much.

Yeah.

Personally, I found it to be an improvement over the previous version, but it's still kind of a lot to take in and get you to.

I thought it was weird that when you, you know, the seat heater and ventilated seats,

and I think the heated steering wheel are all on the screen.

Yeah.

They're not physical buttons.

Right. But they're always visible, which is great.

You can actually make, you can make a change with just pressing once, right?

You know, you're not bringing up a different menu, but you are bringing up a weird, different menu.

So because another pop-up of basically the same thing shows up right above the heated seats,

and the reason is so that I think you can switch from heated seats to ventilated seats,

which you do all the time.

It's just very strange, sorry.

Yeah.

It's just very strange to have the secondary pop-up.

And you can do the same thing on either one, and they're like right there.

Yeah.

It just, to me, seemed a little weird.

Do you think so, or?

Yeah, I guess at least you don't have to use that secondary pop-up.

Yeah.

If all you're doing is the last time you turned on heated seats, and now you want to turn them on again.

Right.

If you want to switch from heated to cool, that's where you're going to start.

Right, interacting with that secondary menu.

Right.

I did find out that you could press both the wheel and the seat at the same time,

like you can two-finger it.

Oh, wow.

Well, some touch screens, you know, it's one thing at a time.

It might sound like some of the things that we're picking on are small items,

but these are day-to-day kind of usability issues.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Certainly, for me, as I've experienced with a number of Toyota models,

the Bluetooth and the Android Auto Connection is completely inconsistent.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

There doesn't seem to be any brimer reason, and I'm not sure why Toyota hasn't whipped this

in the shape with this new Rev4.

I hope when we get our own model, that somehow they push through some software update.

Yeah.

But I think it's absolutely crazy to me that the system can see you paired your phone.

It sees that your phone is there.

Look at that.

There's your phone.

But then you won't, the Android Auto won't turn on.

Like, why not?

Yeah.

I don't know.

Maybe it's a pre-production.

You know, this is a borrowed car, so maybe there's something there.

Right.

But hopefully when we get our own.

Explain why it also doesn't work in our Rev4.

True.

I mean, our four runner.

Yeah, yeah.

And my phone is not an old phone.

It's a relatively new phone, so don't give me.

Oh, you must have an old phone.

Yeah.

But we see this with some manufacturers where some of them, like Hyundai's and Kia's,

you pair your phone, boom.

It just starts automatically without a glitch.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's one of those things that you use every day.

Yeah.

It's going to drive you nuts if it's constantly being unreliable.

Let's talk a little bit about the fit and finish.

Yeah.

Subject matter near and dear to my heart.

We had the XSE from Toyota, which is a pretty high level trim.

It's not the GR Sporty one, whatever the heck that's called.

I think it's that.

The GR Sport.

Yeah.

That was close, like points for being close, or right on.

I thought a lot of hard plastics in different panel gaps.

I definitely like the microswade trim on the seats.

That's a really nice touch.

But not an interior that people are going to get jazzed about.

It is surprisingly plasticky, even the upper part of the dashes

where almost many cars these days are padded, although I'm actually coming to realize that

in some ways, I think it's those sort of some versions of the padded dash

actually attract dust and are harder to clean than straight.

Straight are plastic, but I think people expect that padded dash these days.

And then just kind of where we touched on it.

The clonkiness of the center, the center armrest, the way it works.

The button is clunky, right?

And again, maybe it's because of that whole flip over thing.

I think but it feels awkward and like it doesn't want to open.

And then it just, you know, it just feels and sounds super plasticky and cheap

and like it may not last that long.

And then, you know, this is a little more driving position,

but there's no padding for where your right knee is.

And the center console intrudes on your right knee space quit.

It's weird, it's almost, there's almost like a pad there, but it's plastic.

Now I don't know again, and there's a free production.

So maybe an upper trim like this will actually be padded there,

but if it's not, it's very much intruding on your right knee space

and same with the armrests or for me, they're both a bit a bit low.

Terrible padding.

The one on the door is super thin and the one, the padding on the center one is super hard.

So you really don't win with either.

And we talk about day to day stuff.

You have to live with that on a daily basis

that these armrests are just not that comfortable.

They feel pretty hard on your elbows.

Yeah, loneliness of them too.

Yeah.

So you notice that too.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, not to the point of being a deal breaker, some are.

Right.

But they definitely were noticeably low.

And then the center console does kind of make me laugh because you've compromised

the action of the console that you're going to do probably almost daily,

which is just opening it normally, right, for the 1% of the time that you might flip it over,

if ever.

Right.

So you kind of compromised the part of it you're going to use all the time for the part

you might use.

Never.

Right.

It's kind of funny.

But maybe the automaker say we're doing this because we can.

Yeah.

So another thing I was kind of thinking about was the in consumer ports past surveys,

owner satisfaction for the RAF4 has always been about average.

You know, is that something that an automaker considers when they're doing a redesign?

Do they want to get a higher passion from their customers?

Or just they sell so many of these that it really doesn't matter?

Oh, I would think that they absolutely want to satisfy.

Excuse me, the people who are buying them and, you know, people who have bought them before,

get them back into it, right?

If you want to keep that brand loyal to going.

I mean, yes, I don't think Toyota struggles with it for other reasons, right?

They might be sacrificing some things to get a vehicle that they are the consumers feeling

is going to be more reliable on our data shows that.

So willing to give up some things to get other attributes that Toyota is known for, right?

But yeah, to not be conscious of that would seem like a mistake.

Do you think they tried too hard in some ways, Quence?

Is that where you're going with this?

Or on this one to try and improve that?

I guess what I'm going with is will the redesign model with that will that improve

the owner satisfaction scores?

That's what I'm going with.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, that also that sort of non-tangible assessment of cars,

let's talk about the styling.

Sure.

Which is nothing to do with our numerical ratings or anything like that.

That's what we're car people.

Our audience are car people.

How do you think it looks?

I kind of dig it.

Yeah, I think the front looks good.

It's very blocky, which normally I'm not a fan of, but I kind of like it.

And I think honestly, more than anything, just because it's so different than most other compact SUVs.

And I just, it stands out and it's kind of to me it's a little bit unique without being ugly.

Yeah, I think the front is different.

For me though, I kept seeing Nissan Rogue in the rear.

Oh, that's not a compliment.

I'm sorry.

You said it.

Not me.

I don't know.

I'm telling like it is.

I don't know.

It's something with the shape of the lights.

It's the way the line goes up and kind of meets where the rear glasses.

It just, I don't know.

It's not that I think the Nissan Rogue is not an attractive SUV or anything.

It's just they look so similar.

And in that rear three quarter view, that I kept seeing it when I walked up to it.

But I think the front looks really good.

Now, my wife who's taste you might question because she's with me.

I said, look at the styling of the rev 4 and said, well, it might take a little getting used to.

So that's not necessarily a compliment.

But listen, talking cars audience, let us know.

Put some comments in the in the comments section.

And let us know if you, what do you think of this stuff?

Can I talk about just one more negative?

I think you can talk about anything that super producing Dave Abrams allows us to talk about.

The rear seat.

I don't know if you guys sat back there.

It's just not as good as it should be.

It's, it's oddly low.

And I say oddly because, you know, there's this sort of stadium effect seating that a lot of SUVs have.

Which is because it's, it's just more interesting to sit up a little higher.

It lets passengers look out a little bit more so they don't feel like they're all sunken down.

Especially if you have kids.

Exactly. Right.

And so this does not have that.

But what's weird about that is that for me anyway, there's plenty of headroom left over.

So there was room to have that seat higher.

The problem with having the seat low besides the fact that it doesn't feel like that stadium effect

is that now you're sitting too low.

And so now your knees are higher up in the air.

And I have, I have almost no like under leg support, right?

And I mean, if the seat, if the bottom cushion was right back more, that would have helped as well.

But it's just, again, it's not uncomfortable, but it should be more comfortable.

I guess that's what I'm saying, you know.

Yeah, I wonder if there's, you know, to make the seats fold flat.

Yeah, depending on how, you know, if you want to maximize cargo space, have a super flat floor.

Yeah, if you raise the bench up too much, then maybe the seat would have had to go up in an angle

when you folded it or something like that.

And ultimately, yeah, that's not as comfortable as it should be.

Yeah.

The design decision means to compromise somewhere else.

And that's certainly not a mode of design.

Yes, that's the car world.

So let's get down to the brass taxi.

Would you buy this new ref or would you recommend it to friends or family?

I would personally, it's just I would really be annoying about telling that person that they need to plug it in.

Otherwise, just get that.

I mean, we haven't driven the hybrid yet.

So TBD, I guess, on the details, but if they're not going to plug it in, then go somewhere else.

But if you are interested in, you know, electric only driving and all that, like this, and you have plug and hybrid specifically,

this is a great option.

Yeah, how do you use your car?

What is your commute like?

Some people are used to.

Yeah, but some people, they're really interested in saving money and they have a short commute.

And they have legitimately a place to plug it in.

Let's say you're not living in a apartment or something like that.

Then it makes all the sense of the world to make the little extra effort, I suppose.

Yeah, totally great.

I mean, I would recommend someone buying it just for the powertrain alone if for nothing else.

Because it is so nice to drive as an EV and it is so nice to drive as a hybrid.

Even when it's not plugged in, but I would absolutely probably not be quite as annoying as Mr. Alex over here.

But I would definitely harp on them.

I feel on the gaps where you know, like don't, if you're not going to plug it in, don't buy it.

Just buy the regular hybrid.

Right.

So yeah, but I think it's a really, I think in most ways, it's quite a good vehicle.

They're entering or re-entering an area that has tough competition.

I mean, buyers who want more space should look at the CRV.

Buyers that want cabin that feels more special, look at the Hyundai Tucson.

And packaging efficiency, Subaru Forester.

Luckily for consumers, there's a lot of choices out there.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the RAV4 is another really good viable choice.

The RAV4 will go on sale in early 2026.

The plug-in hybrid version goes on sale in the spring.

The entry-level model is a front-wheel drive LE, which starts at $31,900.

Check back to consumerports.org for more information on the RAV4.

And we will get our test models as soon as we can.

Which brings us to one of our favorite parts of the podcast, which is your questions.

We love your questions.

Text 30-second videos.

Just go to CR.org slash talking cars.

That's CR.org slash talking cars.

And if we use your question on the podcast, we'll send you a free t-shirt or some other auto test swag.

And first up is Keith, who writes.

I've now owned three EVs.

When I was shopping, one of my primary goals was to get a balance between horse power from maneuvering and range for distance.

It seems that horse power figures for new EVs are increasing much faster than range.

Is there a trade-off between horse power and range?

So Alex, I will turn to you first for a legitimately intelligent answer for Keith.

I'll try.

Yeah, that's the high price figure.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, Keith, absolutely.

Like some of these horse power figures on these EVs are just out of control.

Ridiculous.

It's fun.

Yes.

Some of them have gotten a little out of hand.

But to answer more directly, it's not related in the way you might think, especially if you're thinking about gas cars where a big engine generally means less fuel economy or less efficiency and therefore less range.

Because that engine needs to run at a certain level all the time.

Basically, with an electric vehicle so much of this has driven by just the size, the capacity of the battery.

That drives the range.

Certainly, the bigger the battery, all else equal, the more range you're going to be able to get out of that vehicle.

But also a bigger battery means you can pull power from that battery more quickly.

Research something called the C-rate of a battery basically.

How quickly can I discharge or charge that battery?

And that ties to how powerful that motor is.

But the thing is, is with an EV, unless you're going full throttle and you're really using all that power, it's just running out of pretty efficient level.

Yes, the bigger battery is going to make it heavier.

And more horsepower is going to generally, if the automakers got some responsibility behind them, means they're going to put bigger thing wider tires, bigger brakes, heavier duty suspension, etc.

To hopefully cope with the amount of power that they've given the vehicle.

But in other words, we see very powerful EVs have really long ranges.

Also, right, things like the Lucid Air.

I don't know, another one that comes to mind in Mercedes EQS.

Quite powerful, also one of the longest ranges that we've tested.

And another example that I just looked at some more specific numbers is two vehicles that I think are quite comparable, the Model Y and the Equinox EV.

So the Model Y has a smaller battery pack but is more efficient and went further in our range test.

And has more horsepower than the Equinox EV.

That's a sweet spot.

So, you know, the Equinox, yes, bigger battery, less range, less efficient, and less power.

So, in other words, they're not directly coupled the way you might expect.

And would one of the downsides sort of be what having a lot of horsepower is that it gives the owner the opportunity to use that horsepower?

Sure.

And what I mean by that is, it's going to hurt their range.

Sure.

So if they drive it normally, you're going to have a longer range.

But if you use that horsepower to its maximum, yeah, it's going to be a real problem.

But if you drive it, you know, in an efficient way, it will be efficient.

I mean, aside from some of the earliest EVs that Consumer Reports tested, the early Leafs, the Mitsubishi IMEV and all that stuff,

horsepower has never really been much of an issue.

I'm glad you brought that.

I was going to close this out.

It's even, I wouldn't be so worried, like try to get the range that you need and that you think you need for what you're going to do.

But don't worry so much about the power because even the slower EVs that we test are still doing 0-60 in like six seconds.

They're crazy fast, right?

Yeah, the only, they're almost all of them are going to feel quick from a stop and at lower speeds.

It's just when you get up to that 60, 65 mile an hour range.

Yeah.

If it's kind of a lower horsepower EV, it won't have the, you know, the grunt that the higher horsepower won.

But for the most part, they're totally fine.

We love getting EV questions because we're always testing them.

We've invested all this money on it.

Tons of chargers here at Consumer Reports test track.

So we will be on top of all emerging EV technology, which brings us to our last question.

And this is from John from Wintergreen Resort, Virginia.

We live on a mountain in Virginia's Blue Ridge range and travel frequently to visit family in Vermont.

Many of the roads we drive on are expressways and open highways with less than ideal pavement, especially the farther north we go.

The Audi A6's we drive are available in multiple wheel sizes.

I've always felt that bigger wheels are better for managing potholes, but the smaller wheels provide better ride

because of less unsprung weight.

We need true snow tires and winter in all seasons in the other three seasons.

As we look at replacing cars in time, any thoughts on wheel size on potholes survival as well as ride, noise and performance.

And Mr. Monticello, I'm turning to you to enlighten John.

Well, so I mean, John's theory is interesting and it kind of follows like what happened with the mountain bike industry, you know, 15 to 20 years ago.

Mountain bikes had for a long time and had used 26 inch wheels.

And the industry started switching over to 29 inch wheels or 29ers as we call them.

And the theory there was and it works and it's true is that this larger diameter wheel makes it easier to roll over obstacles.

So it makes it easier to get through very tough technical terrain.

And it also has the bright side of also their fantastic on really charging a rough fast downhill as well.

They work right there as also, but while that you would I can see why you would think that would be the case with potholes with a car tire or wheel because it's larger.

So maybe it's not going to fall as far down into the pothole.

But the reality is that typically these larger wheels, the tires that are on them have shorter sidewalls, right?

Typically the larger the wheel, the shorter the sidewall.

And when you have this very short side wall, which mountain bike tires do not have, it ends up being very, it's a stiff short side wall.

And so it ends up kind of making the ride worse typically, not always.

Obviously there's ways you can the manufacturer can cope with that through this suspension.

But it ends up feeling quite often like the wheel and tire are crashing through these potholes, whether the crashing over them or into them.

And sometimes it's to the point where you swear that you just broke a wheel.

And so personally, I think 17s and 18s are the sweet spot of wheel size.

Back in the day when people were back in this a long time ago, in the early 2000s, when people were so much into the sport compact movement, modifying their cars.

17s and 18s were the sweet spot in terms of basically all you wanted to do was have a wheel big enough to fit the larger brakes that you put in the car.

That's all that mattered. But going anything beyond that, basically you're just adding a lot of weight that you don't really need.

So my suggestion would be always look to a smaller wheel size if you can.

Growing up, reading all the enthusiast magazines, it was all about low profile tires.

That's all they talked about. It's like all the handling and everything blah, blah, blah.

But day to day, certainly in consumer reports testing, when we test multiple trim lines or we experience multiple trim lines,

usually the trim lines with the larger wheels and tires, the ride is degraded.

And the noise is typically as well. Especially if it's a wider tire or if it's a performance oriented tire, those are almost always going to be louder.

And so you're increasing your tire and noise in your road noise that way as well.

And it's all about sidewall. We talked about how suspensions are set up, ride comfort.

But a lot of it has to do with how tall the tires are.

And there's been this switch for years now to these bigger wheels.

And it's mostly, correct me, from wrong Alex, for looks.

It's what the automaker started doing.

And then buyers like the way they look. It does make the car look better.

It does wheels. I mean, wheels can make or break a car.

Absolutely. So you can see why they're doing it.

But it's just not the smartest thing to do for a certain, certain aspect.

But if you upgrade to a higher performance wheel, you're also getting probably a higher performance tire replacement cost.

I'm always thinking like the buying decision.

So it's not so much that you're buying something and you just like the way it looks right now.

It's how much is it going to cost to replace that as opposed to like the stock wheel and tire size.

So that's probably another part of the decision.

Yeah, and I'm just reading this and it sounds like if I'm understanding correctly,

keeping the vehicle the same, the A6 in this case.

Going with a larger diameter wheel doesn't mean the whole wheel and tire package is going to be larger.

In August to the 29, verse 26 and bike, right.

They bring the sidewall down.

So the whole outside diameter of the assembly is the same.

So it's not changing how it impacts a pothole or anything like that.

In terms of rolling over it differently.

It's going to crash and do it as you said.

And what the automaker equipped the stock vehicle with a certain mission in mind.

Now there's a mainstream A6 is probably going to skew a little bit more toward comfort as opposed to an S6.

Sure.

Or one of the higher performance outies, they're going to maybe have summer only tires, huge wheels and whatnot.

So John doesn't say which trim kind of A6 he has.

So I guess we're kind of assuming it's more the mainstream one.

Hopefully the wagon.

But I mean, is it a legitimate to say that most of the time the automakers know what the best wheel tire combination is for their car?

Yeah.

And should you just stick to that?

They tune their cars a certain way.

There's a lot of engineering time and resources that go into these vehicles.

So yeah, you can change something in kind of skew it in a direction that you might prefer or want to change.

Yeah, they're ultimately out of the box.

The vehicle is going to be as well round because it's going to be.

So sometimes the answer is, what do I do for replacement?

You know, tires like, well, stick with what?

Yeah.

Certainly.

And Ryan Pistolkowski will be very excited to know that you are going to get winter tires.

Thank goodness for you.

And preparing for the roads in Vermont.

We love Vermont up here.

Anyhow, that will about do it for this episode of Talking Cars, which was orchestrated and conducted by Super Producer Dave Abrams and edited by Andrew.

I still play hockey Belize.

And of course, and it's holy the great shumsky.

As always, check the show notes for more information on the vehicles topics that we discussed.

Just a reminder to keep your questions coming.

Go to CR.org slash talking cars.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

We'll see you next time.

2026 Toyota RAV4

About this episode

2026 Toyota RAV4

hybrid powertrain

plug-in variant

PHEV

turbo lag

dual clutch transmission

electric motors

plug and hybrid

EV range

regular hybrid

plug-in hybrid

EV

charging

charger

EV light driving experience

19-inch wheels

20-inch wheels

aspect ratio

wheelbase

spirit tire

blind spot warning

Toyota Camry XSE

stadium effect seating

electric only driving

C-rate

Nissan Leaf

Mitsubishi i-MiEV

wheel size

winter tires

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