The Toyota RAV4 Prime is a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that offers a unique blend of comfort, performance, and practicality. As I drove around in this top-of-the-line trim, I was struck by how well it handled both on-road and off-road driving. The suspension is incredibly comfortable, and I noticed no issues going over bumps or uneven terrain. It's just a regular old RAV4, but with the added benefit of electric power.

One feature that I'm not a big fan of is the lack of lumbar adjustment in the driver's seat. It's only adjustable forward and back, which can be a bit limiting for some drivers. Additionally, as a plug-in hybrid, I was curious to see how it would charge. The RAV4 Prime can charge up in about two and a half hours on a level 2 charger, which is impressive. However, realistically, most people won't be charging their car overnight, so this isn't a major concern.

In terms of towing capacity, the RAV4 Prime can tow up to 2,500 pounds, which is still sufficient for many users who need to transport larger items or even jet skis. The rear seat area is also surprisingly spacious, with enough room for taller individuals to sit comfortably without feeling cramped. However, if those same passengers want a drink while traveling, they might find the cupholder to be just barely large enough to accommodate a small container.

Moving on to the exterior design of the RAV4 Prime, it's clear that this is not your average model. Without a front plate due to Quebec regulations, it gains access to the HOV lanes, giving it an advantage in traffic. The front end looks sleek and modern, with a bold color scheme that I found particularly appealing. A black roofline adds a touch of sophistication to the overall design.

As we moved around to the side view, I was struck by the crisp lines and body shape of the RAV4 Prime. It's clear that Toyota has honed its skills in designing vehicles like this. The lack of chrome accents is also a nice touch, giving it a sportier feel.

However, when it comes to wheels, I have to say that I'm not impressed. They're just too bland and don't add much to the overall aesthetic appeal of the vehicle. A more aggressive design would elevate this model from a mere RAV4 to something truly special. Moving on, Toyota recommends the Continental CrossContact LX25 tire for optimal performance.

As we approached the rearview mirror, I was surprised by how unique the shape is. It's a bit polarizing, but overall, I think it's an attractive feature that sets this vehicle apart from its competitors. The exhaust tips are also noteworthy, with dual pipes giving a sporty flair to the model.

Overall, my impressions of the Toyota RAV4 Prime have been overwhelmingly positive. There's so much to like about this vehicle, from its comfortable ride and generous features list to its practicality and efficiency. However, there are some minor quibbles, particularly when it comes to infotainment and safety features that just don't quite meet expectations.

When it comes to pricing, the RAV4 Prime starts at $57,245 Canadian, with a limited availability in Quebec only due to regulatory requirements. This is the top-of-the-line trim, which means it's fully loaded with all the bells and whistles. In conclusion, my experience driving the Toyota RAV4 Prime has left me impressed by its many charms. While there are certainly some areas for improvement, this plug-in hybrid offers an unbeatable blend of comfort, performance, and practicality that makes it a compelling choice in the market.

As I reflect on my time with the RAV4 Prime, I'm reminded that there's always something to be learned from every vehicle we drive. Whether it's a trade-off between features or a minor design flaw, each car offers insights into what works and what doesn't. The Toyota RAV4 Prime is no exception – with its blend of electric power and fuel efficiency, it sets a new standard for plug-in hybrids in the market.

But if I'm being completely honest, there are moments when I wish that this vehicle had more advanced features. Perhaps a better infotainment system or some improvements to safety features would elevate the overall driving experience. Still, these are minor quibbles in an otherwise exceptional package. As we wrap up our time with the RAV4 Prime, it's clear that Toyota has created something truly special – a vehicle that balances comfort, performance, and practicality with ease.

And so, if you're considering purchasing a plug-in hybrid or simply want to learn more about this remarkable vehicle, I highly recommend checking out some of the links in our video description below. We'll be exploring more electric cars and their unique features, so stay tuned!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni'm yuri i'm jacob we're going for a drive 2021 toyota rav4 prime xse with technology package with no launch control pretty fast for rav4 oh 302 combined horsepower and there is no actual combined torque figure so if you actually do combine all of the torque figures it totally doesn't make sense 451 pound-feet of torque so this is the first plug-in hybrid suv from toyota yes that's right they're trying to get a chunk out of those sales from the mitsubishi eclipse cross which is the world's best-selling plug-in hybrid suv that's according to mitsubishi yes because when they came out way before everyone else now everyone's trying to catch up pretty much and the fact that you can't actually buy one of these kind of helps mitsubishi because batteries are actually kind of hard to get so toyota's having a tough time actually trying to get enough of these on the road so where can you buy them currently in canada you can get them in quebec and then next year you can start getting them in bc and then ontario and the rest of the country in the united states probably california first and then the rest of the country so now the important stuff this can go 68 kilometers on just electricity alone yeah which is pretty damn good and it's the highest number for any plug-in hybrid i believe and then you can also charge the battery back up while driving by holding the charge hold button pretty much all the electronics in here are just like the prius prime we drove earlier this year pretty much exactly the same but this actually feels a lot faster so if i floor it in auto hv mode there we go like a lot quicker than a rav4 should be it's not that quick once you're already going off the line this thing's kind of a rocket yeah you turn traction off you can straight up peel the wheels peel the tires now a full electric only launch it's gonna be kind of slow wow that's torquey a lot slower but still torquey yeah you really need to combine everything to make this into the sports car suv that it is well which that gets you the 302 horsepower which is combined and it is all-wheel drive but it is mostly front-wheel drive and it only sends power to the back through the electric motors when it needs to yeah and it's pretty cool you can see it all in the settings on the infotainment but it's a lot going on so it's kind of distracting if you're trying to see what's actually happening and since we're talking about horsepower and speed did you know that toyota claims that this is the second fastest toyota in their entire lineup after the supra after the supra three liter and two liter or super in general the super in general so this is actually the fastest toyota that they make yes because this is a toyota engine not a bmw yeah so this is the fastest toyota toyota to make that's kind of ridiculous really funny kind of sad yeah but uh interesting exactly so driving this has been pretty chill the whole time i've been trying to cruise mostly on electric and hybrid i just leave it in auto most of the time because it's hard to really charge it living in an apartment but there's been a lot of conveniences with this starting with the keyless entry it is so good it works on every single door every single time you don't have to do any weird stuff where you open the front click a button and get to the back that's one of my favorite things and then moving on to the trunk it is a power liftgate but when you try to close it it takes so long to close i wonder how many boxes it fits box test one two three four five six seven eight nine and now we have raj and s's box at ten and todd misses elise at eleven and get your own box on patreon.com the straight pipes and in the back we don't have grocery hangers we only have a net and i was doing like a pretty big haul and i just kind of had to tuck everything under there it was a total pain i would much rather have hangers on the side because then you can actually put bigger stuff in the middle still and then as for just driving it this one actually does have a pretty decent lane keep assist system with the radar crews it's not as good to me as the kia hyundai systems even the older ones i feel like it failed in a lot of points especially on on ramps off-ramps and like when lanes weren't as clear so it's not my favorite but in stop and go traffic it did help a ton but then while parking it the 360 cameras were pretty helpful do you like the resolution of them the resolution sucks but it's kind of cool that you can rotate around in 360 and kind of change the color of the vehicle and stuff like that yeah so you get all those options when you're in park and then you push the camera button on the bottom left which is a hard button which is very convenient but the weird thing is the resolution of our rear view mirror which is actually a camera as well is so much clearer than all the 360 cameras yeah so just put whatever tech they put into the mirror and just put it into all the other cameras even though that's probably too expensive for toyota and you can also change the camera so you can see your front wheels while you're getting into your spots so you don't hit your wheels on any curbs and when i got in this car after driving for a few minutes i turned off the head-up display because the projection hurts my eyes and i thought it might have been because of my astigmatism and glasses but yeah you got a problem with it too i had the exact same problem where it looks like it's blurry it hurts your eyes just like it hurts your eyes to look at a camera into a rear view mirror it's almost like just the camera's out of focus just by a little bit there's something up with it and i don't know if it's this particular model but that would be a deal breaker for me if i loved heads up displays so if i did this with this camera that's kind of what the head up display looks for us and the last cool feature that i like with this whole camera system if you're in drive and you come to a stop say stop and go traffic on the road and someone crosses in front of you when someone crosses in front it's automatically going to throw up the camera so you can make sure you're not driving over anyone who might have snuck in front of you while you weren't looking does it beep though pretty sure it beeps everything beeps toyota well that would be super annoying in the winter when the cameras are covered and all that kind of stuff i think when the camera's covered it would probably just say like not active not working you know what i mean that'd be better because i think porsches also beep and stuff when they come to a stop so that's really annoying in the winter sometimes so i'm going to end off my driving portion with some infotainment stuff i like and don't like everything in here is pretty much exactly the same as the tacoma so we've got apple carplay and android auto but this volume knob and tuning knob are much better than we had in the taco but everything's exactly the same like every other rav4 we've already driven but i'm kind of getting super annoyed of tuning knobs being too far out of reach old cars everything was out at the bottom it was easier to reach i kind of want them to reimagine everything like cadillac's doing where the volume knob and tuning knob are closer to each other yeah that makes sense but this one's not an issue for me because you're taller right exactly and just like the tacoma i hate that when you click map it doesn't go to your google maps and carplay there's no button to go right to your carplay projection if you click phone it'll go to the phone screen it adds too many extra buttons but that's something i'm going to work on shortening in every single car so now it's time for you to drive it and launch it faster than most toyotas actually before i drive it i hate being on the passenger side because this passenger seat is so much taller than the driver's seat and there's no way to lower it just like every other rav4 that we've already driven oh yeah that's another thing i don't like if you put your key in a bag in the door panel when you open it and close it it won't realize that it's still in the vehicle so here grab my little fanny pack all right now everything is fine well there we go finally wow that was really weird traction control it just like kept trying to catch it has a lot of power and we should also mention we're reviewing this car for eco month as part of being members of the automobile journalists association of canada yeah shout out ajax shout out ajak and this does have a zero to 100 kilometer per hour time of six seconds which is why it's the second fastest in the toyota lineup so if i just floor it when i'm driving you can hear and feel the transition between the gas engine and the batteries but it's actually really good because this has a cvt and it's not annoying this is like one of the best cvts i've ever driven and toyota does a really good job of doing cvts in hybrid vehicles okay how about the paddles though well we do have paddles which is hilarious and we don't have attack or anything so i can downshift i mean makes noise and then no idea when to up shift and it doesn't upshift either yeah weird gimmick but uh okay they're just kind of downshift paddles like downshift questionable gears and sometimes it doesn't even do it they're useless straight up useless so let's kick this thing into sport mode and send it into a cliche corner and see how this okay loads of understeer but man this is actually pretty quick i think it does handle better than the regular rav4 because all the batteries are below us so you get a lower center of gravity oh yeah it must be and you get that tycon feeling of pulling out of corners that we got on the racetrack when you're accelerating out somewhat yeah yeah you get that the stuff you wouldn't get in an only gas car yes exactly it's like the instant torque for like a couple seconds because we drove the tyco with the all seasons which wasn't super grip central no it wasn't so i said i did that in sport mode now let's talk about these drive modes because it's very confusing and there's a lot of them so we have eco sport normal trail and then we also have auto ev hv and then charge hold and ev yeah so there's like three or four different ev lights in my dash depending on what mode i'm in and it's so confusing to know what each mode does so you kind of have to dig through the modes take like a day or two and figure out exactly what each mode does i think you also forgot that there is sport shifting on the shifter by hitting it to the left yes but there's no manual because cbt i think when you get in it you put it into auto unless you know you want to drive only electric then you'll click the hv ev button not the auto ev hv button and when you see evie in there you know you're an electric even if you floored it'll stay in electric and then if you know that you're gonna need electricity later like if you're gonna be driving in the city or something like that and you're currently on the highway then you wanna charge up that battery and get it ready for when you're in the city to save more gas then you would hold down the charge hold button but if you're already at full it'll tell you you can't yeah because this has a max range of 68 kilometers so you can't over charge the battery and then when you're looking at the tach in the gauge cluster we do have our battery meter on the bottom right in analog and then we've got our fuel at the top right analog but then we have one of the screens in the middle that'll also show a more precise figure of how many kilometers you have left in each and don't forget the analog tac on the left as well which goes off charge eco and power so when you floor it goes into power obviously and then for the most part you're just kind of chilling in eco and then you can also see that all in your head up display as well if your eyes are able to focus on that which mine are not and everything else feels kind of like a regular rav4 the suspension's really comfortable i've noticed no issues going over bumps or anything like that it's just a regular old rav4 okay a regular rav4 thing i don't like is that the lumbar is only adjustable forward and back not up and down and since this is a plug-in hybrid you guys probably care about charging times this can charge in about two and a half hours on a level two because this is the top trim but realistically any plug-in hybrid they design so you can plug it when you get home and it'll be ready to get you to work and back probably the next day oh for sure no problem overnight because this isn't a full ev and even though this does have tons of torque like we mentioned it can't actually tow more than a regular rav4 so it could tow up to 2 500 pounds which is still enough for at least one or two jet skis and what if you needed to seat some people in the back seat to ride those jet skis later is there enough room for tall people at six foot one and a half totally like no issues no complaints with seating room in the back for this car what if those people were thirsty and wanted a small cup of coffee looks like it passes to me yeah just barely but there's enough room on the sides to grip it and what if the sun was shining on those people as well well they'd be screwed in the back but let's check the front three two one fail oh extensions yeah and to sum up this overall interior the quality is really good the materials that they chose are good the colors are pretty cool the seats are overall pretty comfortable so let's talk about the outside because it's not that much different from a regular rav4 starting with the front end we don't have a front plate on it because this is a quebec car because you probably can't get them in ontario yeah with a green plate so that means you can go into the hov lanes the front looks very nice just like all the other rav4s it is different than that trail that we drove earlier but i think this looks better than that red one we drove yeah they're all pretty similar i agree like white is a good color for this especially with the black accents everywhere yeah not having chrome on this looks pretty cool and from the side view the roof is blacked out so against the darker background it looks like there is no roof oh we're definitely ruthless this is a convertible you ready so the body lines on the side are very crisp like all the other rav4s then if we look at the plastic cladding around the wheels it's actually gloss black now yeah it's just black on the outside and then what do you think of these wheels i actually hate them they kind of look like they belong on a 10 year old maxima yeah they are kind of weird but they are slightly electric-y they're not electrically enough but they're also not cool enough for regular looking wheels and then what would be the continental recommended tire for the rav4 prime the cross contact lx25 and if you look behind those wheels you'll notice there's some nice big red springs and stuff weird that's because like off-roading you know what i mean oh yeah this is trd off-road aka no but this probably can't off-road pretty well yes considering we do have a trail mode it must be pretty good on the trails and then moving on to the back same old rav4 kind of looks but i really hate the rav4 from the very very back it's just a very weird shape overall i think this is a really good looking car yeah and then looking at the exhaust tips we do have dual exhaust and it is real but you can see the one exhaust in the other exhaust tip which i kind of don't like so that's pretty much it with the rav4 prime time to get to the price 57 245 canadian yeah and only available in quebec right now yeah and this is the top trim pretty much fully loaded so overall impressions of this rav4 prime this is one of my favorite vehicles of this type that i've driven and i'm shocked at how much i like it yeah there's a lot of nice things about it but there's a lot of little tech things that kind of suck like the infotainment and the lane keep so i think i'd kind of just wait for maybe like a hyundai version of something that has all the features that are better or just go for something that's full electric so let us know what you guys think leave a comment below and check out this playlist right here of probably electric cars or something like that and let us know if you try to buy one of these and if you have an issue yeah if you can't get one because you can't get one you\n"