Why the Sky High Price for RAV4 PHEV ?

[lightboxcar]

Hello

Just joined this club in the hope of receiving advice as never owned a Toyota before.

Considering private purchase of new RAV4 PHEV , did a test drive and liked it a lot,  one reason being the excellent 46 mile EV range.

BMW X5 is even better at 65 miles, but price out of reach.  Volkswagon Tiguan PHEV is £11k cheaper but only 29 mile EV.

Fully appreciate the standard equipment supplied with RAV4 PHEV is very good indeed, but still feels a really sky high price.

Are you an existing owner? Do you feel the car has justified the high price ?

Despite the temporary chip shortage crisis, there will be many new models coming to market, and more competition , maybe the RAV4 PHEV will come down in price, or is that just wishful thinking ?

Thanks in advance

[ernieb]

I’ve owned the 2021 RAV4 PHEV since the end of May and I’m also a private buyer. I bought the Dynamic version not the Dynamic Premium.

It’s difficult to answer your question about value as it’s so much based on individual reasons for the purchase what you might consider “value”. 
I’ve been retired for sometime and have owned a lot of cars, both private and company but I love to drive this car, it’s a pleasure to drive. I’m able to charge the car from home using a 240v supply which takes around 7 hours and the MyT app (and car) tell me that with my driving style I should get 57 miles on EV using the heater/AC. Locally I can get pretty near that on the motorway travelling at the posted speed limits just a few days ago I got 43miles (heater and lights it was early) 

The car is well built probably let down by the infotainment system which is “clunky” by comparison to many other brands. That said if you use Android Auto it’s possibly the most stable I’ve ever used. It’s fast if you need it to be and runs very effectively with virtually imperceptible management of transition between EV and Hybrid mode.

The MyT app features are good and offer pretty good tracking of the car, all your journeys are defined and analysed with maps of trips and stats.

I’ve just added a spare wheel, donut, kit and I’m awaiting stock to buy a non OEM set of roof bars.

Your probably best asking specific questions and I’m sure others will give you there take on this car.

[Gray86]

I think performance is a big factor in the price, as well as the quality of the engineering when compared to VW. It’s well equipped too. 

[philip42h]

In purely monetary terms, the RAV4 PHEV isn't worth the premium over the equivalent RAV4 HEV - you'll never make back the difference in fuel savings from the additional EV capability. But folk like Ernie didn't buy one for purely economic reasons (and it's 2 seconds quicker to 60 than the HEV).

Comparisons with other brands are wholly subjective - you'll just have to make up your own mind which brand you prefer. The Toyota hybrid technology is really very good indeed but I haven't actually tried many, let alone all, of the alternatives so all I can really say is that I am happy with my choice. 🙂

Oh, and I'm currently on my third RAV4 so I'm probably a little biased ...

[Smelter1]

Hi Ernie, I’m looking to buy a space saver wheel for my RAV4 PHEV, could you give me some advice? Is the current RAV4 hybrid space saver suitable as my car has 19” wheels?

[lightboxcar]

Thank you all very much , advice highly appreciated

Thanks ernieb   , the EV range you are getting is very encouraging.

Style of driving will certainly be modest, no blasting away when traffic light change, staying within speed limits, and so long as traffic allows, slowing down when approaching red lights in case they go green ( avoids complete stop ).  And will be garaged overnight, have 3-pin power socket , but will likely get wall box if not too expenive.

Am not very concerned over the infotainment system so long as can use Apple Play , so hopefully that will be good like your Android.

Definately would want a spare wheel, would never go aywhere without one.  What is a "donut" ?

and Gray86  , Actually never had VW before either , re. "quality of the engineering when compared to VW..."  do you feel Toyota quality better then VW ?

 philip42h  Yes, came to precisely the same conclusion.  Buying motivation is really being able to drive on pure EV for the vast majority of journeys, which will be less than 40 miles but still have ability to drive 400 mile journeys , am prepared to pay a premium for that.

Reason for looking at Toyota RAV4 was a chance meeting at the car wash with a RAV4 owner.  He like you was on his third or fourth RAV4 and praised them highly.  Had never considered Toyota brand, so did some research and felt a bit silly not knowing they are just about the biggest car manufacturer in the world , witha  superb record for reliability !

[philip42h]

8 minutes ago, Smelter1 said:

Hi Ernie, I’m looking to buy a space saver wheel for my RAV4 PHEV, could you give me some advice? Is the current RAV4 hybrid space saver suitable as my car has 19” wheels?

Not really an appropriate question for this thread but has been asked and answered here:

 

[philip42h]

10 minutes ago, lightboxcar said:

Buying motivation is really being able to drive on pure EV for the vast majority of journeys, which will be less than 40 miles but still have ability to drive 400 mile journeys , am prepared to pay a premium for that.

Sounds like you've already made up your mind ... 🙂 

[lightboxcar]

Ha ha , yes Philip , you may not be far wrong.  Probably desparately trying to justify spending so much.....

[ernieb]

@lightboxcar, a donut spare is the skinny tyre rather than the full size tyre, so limited to 50mph. It fits well inside the boot and was bought as Toyota Uk do not sell that size spare. It’s standard equipment in the US. Toyota are not alone in this perverse behaviour.

it does have Apple Car Play, I’ve not tested this but see no reason for it not to work as effectively as Android Auto. 
Your use of the car is similar to mine a bias towards local driving but a need to avoid the range anxiety of a full EV. The EV performance is excellent if your driving style is more defensive that aggressive and are happy to use lift and coast technique if a normal car demanded braking. It’s magic to see miles being added to the range when the car is going downhill, I’ve seen energy recovery off over 3miles going downhill and yes I’d have to loose energy going back up the same hill but at least it was recovered rather than just heating the brakes on the way down. (Same as the HEV). The Head Unit energy screen is good to look at and shows the interaction of the engine, motors and Battery. I’ve used the cabin preconditioning and that’s really good especially if it’s connected to the charging cable as the power is taken from the house before you leave and not the car. As this does not use the engine it is safe to use this feature in a garage, so a nice warm or cool car. 
The charging and preconditioning can be set when you want to drive the car, so if you wanted the car available, preconditioned and charge for 8am, just set the time in the MyT app and the car will sort out when it’s time to start the charge and precondition. If you have an off peak meter so much the better.

[ernieb]

17 minutes ago, philip42h said:

Not really an appropriate question for this thread but has been asked and answered here:

 

I did comment on this and also posted a few before and after pictures of my own purchase on another thread. Thanks.

[lightboxcar]

Now have another reason to justify buying this car, excellent advice appears readly availble in this forum.....

[ernieb]

I’ve been on a few car forums over the years and you are correct this is a friendly and inclusive. Like good neighbours worth there weight in gold.

[Gray86]

48 minutes ago, lightboxcar said:

and Gray86  , Actually never had VW before either , re. "quality of the engineering when compared to VW..."  do you feel Toyota quality better then VW ?

I’ve had many VWs before I moved to Toyota - VW interiors were generally better (not so much on latest models), but the quality of the suspension components, not to mention the superbly engineered hybrid powertrains, is far superior on Toyota. 

[lightboxcar]

Thank you Gray86, most useful info

 ernieb as you actually own a PHEV, please could advise on a couple of things that forgot to check on the test drive:

from pictures, understand the EV fuelling port is on the offside rear , and the petrol cap nearside rear, correct ?

Confused about warranty, all the car review sites say five years/100,000 miles.  The Toyota brochure says three years ?

 

[Yugguy1970]

If the extra speed isn't a draw for you then you can get a hev to the equivalent trim spec a lot cheaper.

Does the phev have a lot better mpg?  It would need to be to recoup the extra cost over the time of ownership.

Standard warranty from new is 3 years.  It can be extended to up to 10 years if you service at Toyota.

[Rav Rob]

One other consideration is overall efficiency, the RAV4 hybrid technology is already remarkably efficient, even with the PHEV bits added on I know people still getting 45mpg running on fuel alone, long after the Battery is used up on longer journey. I would bet the Tiguan without very gentle nurturing quickly becomes a 30mpg car once the Battery is gone, the X5 probably worse!.

Unlike the current generation of RAV, many cars like the Tiguan were not designed for PHEV version from the start so are compromised, the Tiguan loses 146 litres of boot space for example, the RAV loses just 60 litres.

Some of our staff run BMW 5 series PHEV's and I know on longer trips its a struggle to get over 30mpg.  45mpg for a big 4wd SUV with 300bhp is game-changing.

It is expensive, too much for me sadly, but you take a £35K (like Excel) very extensively equipped car, add a fair sized costly Battery, extra high power electronics and uprated motors and you add £10K of hardware so you end up with a £45K car, there is no way round it.

[philip42h]

43 minutes ago, lightboxcar said:

Confused about warranty, all the car review sites say five years/100,000 miles.  The Toyota brochure says three years ?

The manufacturer warranty has always been three years. Up until this year Toyota UK added an extra two years to UK registered cars making a total of five years. After that you could purchase extended warranty at a reasonable price.

This year they changed that and introduced Toyota Relax whereby if you have your car serviced at Toyota they add an extra year per service up to a maximum of ten years warranty.

Since you are quite likely to have the car serviced at Toyota you'll get ten years warranty - if you keep the car that long!

[lightboxcar]

Very interesting points, thank you.

May be far off the mark, but have a feeling petrol prices are going to rise in the years ahead, perhaps a lot.  It's a perfect target for taxation under the guise of green anti-carbon measures.  Already premium unleaded is not far off £1.50/ltr anyway

Using ( carefully ) the RAV PHEV for 30/40 miles/day on EV is around 15,000 free miles/year. 

All very ambitious and slightly speculative of course, but actually does quite closely match expected driving paterns.

[lightboxcar]

Thank you philip42h and  Yugguy1970 for clarifying the warranty.

Almost certainly would be serviced at Toyota, so ten years is very reassuring indeed.

[Yugguy1970]

Aye, at the end of the day you pay your money and you take your choice.

All I would say is that it depends on the type of driving you do. I'm finding at town speeds my hev spends a lot of time in pure ev mode, or with the engine running but at idle.  

 

[AJones]

23 minutes ago, lightboxcar said:

Almost certainly would be serviced at Toyota, so ten years is very reassuring indeed.

Upto 10 years warranty against manufacturing and assembly defects on certain specified components, T&Cs below

https://www.toyota.co.uk/download/cms/gben/Toyota Relax TCs - 25.05.21_tcm-3060-2286757.pdf

[philip42h]

32 minutes ago, lightboxcar said:

Using ( carefully ) the RAV PHEV for 30/40 miles/day on EV is around 15,000 free miles/year.

You must let us know where you get your free electricity from - and whether it is actually legal! 😁

I haven't seen anywhere that Toyota quote the electrical efficiency for the PHEV but assuming that it's around 300 Wh/mile (not atypical for an EV) 15k miles/year would cost around £900 (@20p/kWh). As demand increases the cost of electricity is likely to rise significantly but we'll ignore that for now.

Running the HEV one should get around 45mpg. At current prices 15k miles would cost around £2,250 per year. As demand decreases the cost of petrol is likely to fall but we'll ignore that for now.

So, the saving from running a PHEV rather than an HEV is around £1,350 per year.

The premium for a PHEV over an HEV is around £10k - so a PHEV owner doing 15k electric miles per year would break-even in around 7.5 years (and over 100k miles).

I think - but I wouldn't advise anyone to trust my sums!

😉 

[ernieb]

As I’ve indicated I get good local driving mileage on EV and rarely is there a need for the car to move into HEV mode. If as you’ve indicated your driving style and ambition is to maximise the mileage in EV mode then during the summer months you can get around the high 40’s low 50’s. Winter will be worse of course so an average of around the low/mid 40’s might be reasonable so should meet your 40miles a day goal. I don’t creep about but try to recover energy when it’s possible without holding other road users.

I took out a 5 year service plan when I bought my car but as the service interval is every 10k and I do 12/13k per year that might more like 4 years.

So far I’ve not got a real handle on the HEV fuel usage but on the longish trips I’ve figured out that low to mid 50’s mpg is typical The MyT app is not big on differentiating between runs in pure EV and HEV as it treats it all as HEV. So if I do a trip of 120miles and get 45 miles in EV before the HEV mode kicks in I have to calculate from the figures in the MyT app the fuel used then recalculate after deducting the EV mileage. I hope that makes sense…? The app does report some magical mpg  numbers if the HEV mode kicks in for a couple of miles after depleting the full EV mode. I’ve requested changes I’d like to see in the app via the support system.

[AJones]

9 minutes ago, philip42h said:

I haven't seen anywhere that Toyota quote the electrical efficiency for the PHEV but assuming that it's around 300 Wh/mile (not atypical for an EV) 15k miles/year would cost around £900 (@20p/kWh). 

Many energy suppliers are now offering time of use tariffs for EV charging, with heavily discounted off-peak rates for a block of hours over night, similar to Economy 7. Some of these are as low as 5p/kWh, which would be £225 a year, or 1.5p per mile.