The 2022 Toyota RAV4 lives up to its meat-and-potatoes buzz, but the Primary serves up eco-friendly-car or truck purple meat. With the RAV4, Toyota hits a bulls-eye for compact crossover SUV styling and options, even though interior place misses some vital marks by mere inches. Its Key plug-in is a gem, and that makes it a rival for the Ford Escape as well as the Honda CR-V and Subaru Forester.
Toyota has tweaked the crossover’s exterior and interior. Most notably, it now sells an SE Hybrid with fabric upholstery and a 7.-inch touchscreen and 6-speaker audio it can be optioned with heated front seats, a sunroof, a power tailgate, and a 9.-inch touchscreen. Updated headlights on all styles at or over the XLE quality could support its protection score, way too.
The RAV4 faucets rugged information and angles for a all set-to-rumble search. It hits plenty of large notes and will take a lot of angular likelihood and it all functions. With hints of 4Runner and Tacoma in its profile, the trendy RAV4 has a squat stance and an abundance of angles that all dangle jointly. The adventurous system has slim home windows and a reduced-wanting roofline, with swole fenders that get positively chunky in Adventure and TRD Off-Street spec. It can be difficult and awkward to spec out one silhouette with luxury facts like a mesh grille and, in one more version, with black fender trim and a black-painted roof, but Toyota’s performed so with the RAV4. Even Primes get their very own grille and gloss-black bumper, for a contact of visual difference.
Exceedingly scarce on dealer heaps, the Key receives a massive 18.1-kwh battery pack with electrical motors to make 302 hp. Right up until the Supra arrived alongside, that designed the Primary the quickest Toyota motor vehicle, time period. With a -60 mph time of 5.7 seconds, and a tauter sport suspension, the RAV4 Prime launches with authority, handles with aplomb, and can be toggled into an EV-only method for up to 42 miles of battery-electric driving. The battery adds about 500 lb to suppress body weight, and that reveals up in extra understeer in tightly kinked roadways, but it’s a hushed drive however, a environmentally friendly thrill to be sought out. We normally observed all electrical assortment about 50 miles.
Get the RAV4 Primary for max efficiency f you can obtain a single. The RAV4 Primary gets scored at up to 42 miles of electrical-only driving, and at 94 MPGe for overall performance, or 38 mpg mixed with fuel overall economy estimates of 41/38/40 mpg with common all-wheel drive.
The IIHS gave the RAV4 a Top Safety Decide award in the preceding model 12 months for the Hybrid Confined with its extravagant adaptive headlights. Most other types have sported LED headlights rated “Marginal” Hybrids’ headlights have been rated “Poor.” Toyota has upgraded the headlights this calendar year on the XLE and all versions over it, so we’ll update the effects below when new data is released.
The NHTSA, meanwhile, gives the RAV4 5 stars in general, but that will come with a four-star score for entrance-effect protection. Together with automated emergency braking, all RAV4s appear with adaptive cruise regulate, active lane handle, and automatic large beams. Blind-place displays can be equipped, and they’re suggested because thick roof pillars blot out some of the see to the rear.
The cabin could make improvements to on some of its harder plastics, but what works listed here is the simplicity of its layout. A horizontal line across the sprint offers the RAV4 a calmness that’s brightened up by metallic trim all around the vents and the change lever. Spendy versions can wear synthetic leather and contrast-color stitching, even a significant 9.-inch touchscreen, but the search continues to be the identical: thoughtful and restrained, with out currently being uninteresting.
The RAV4’s adventurous form trims back again some utility. Cargo fares perfectly in the most current RAV4. It sports activities a great deal of small bins and shelves for things like smartphones and water bottles. The back again seat folds down, far too, which boosts its 31 cubic feet of cargo room to about 63 cubic feet due to the fact the Primes drop about 6 cubic ft to even bigger battery packs. The cargo flooring sits at a excellent peak for loading, and many products have or provide a power tailgate.
The optional sunroof cuts into what is now slender head room for 6-footers, even though at 6’1” yours genuinely suits just barely. The driving situation suits numerous physique forms, however, and Toyota adds heating and synthetic leather upholstery to some variations. In back again, the RAV4’s 37 inches of leg home in shape tall passengers high-quality, but head home continue to checks in on the trim aspect. Shoulder house will come at a top quality: A third passenger can elbow their way into the center seat, but no one particular will want to experience that way for extensive.
The RAV4 delivers first rate benefit but the Key tends to make us splurge. We hugely advise the RAV4 Primary with its plug-in 302-hp drivetrain, but it’s truly tricky to discover on vendor loads and at existing, arrives with substantial markup more than its sticker value of just down below $40,000. It will get a sport suspension, beauty insert-ons, an readily available 9.-inch touchscreen, an audio subwoofer, a sunroof, and synthetic leather-based upholstery with pink accents.
With the RAV4, Toyota has stuck the veritable sweet-spot of the smaller SUV course. The 2022 Toyota RAV4 is a wonderful competitor in the compact crossover class, 1 that the Prime just would make improved. It does everything you’d want with Toyota refinement and dependability, and in Hybrid and Prime versions, wonderful gas economic system. The 2022 Toyota RAV4 Key is an spectacular crossover, likely the finest 1 that Toyota builds.
