Toyota SA announces plans to test Market response to RAV4 plug-in hybrid

Toyota South Africa Motors has announced plans to test the local market and measure its response to the RAV4 plug-in hybrid vehicle.

The Japanese Car maker, Toyota, said this following the unveiling of the RAV4 GX hybrid in 2021 and the RAV4 hybrid E-Four this year.

While the Toyota RAV4 hybrid is not officially on sale yet, several RAV4 PHEVs have been imported as a market research exercise to test customer response in areas such as vehicle behaviour, infrastructure requirements, and other technical aspects among others.

Toyota also announced in a statement that one of the purposes of the programme is to allow TSAM to provide its customers “with a holistic and tested solution”, says the local arm of the Japanese vehicle maker.

As one of the best-selling car or vehicle brands in South Africa, Toyota said it’s RAV4 PHEV offers the power and clean efficiency of an electric vehicle (EV).

“Here you get all the benefits of a traditional full-hybrid vehicle – self-charging, petrol engine back-up, and extended range – with the additional performance and pure EV driving mode of a battery electric vehicle (BEV),” said Toyota SA.

The car, Toyota PHEV RAV4, has a 2.5 l petrol powerplant paired with a larger EV battery and two electric motors, driving each of the axles according to Engineering News.

“The battery is lithium-ion and supplies 18.1 kW of power. It is located below the passenger compartment,” reports the website.

“The petrol engine punches out 136 kW of power and 227 Nm of torque. The engine is paired with front and rear electric motors which contribute 134 kW and 40 kW, respectively. An additional 270 Nm and 121 Nm of torque are on tap. The resulting total system output is 225 kW.

“The plug-in model uses the same architecture as the conventional E-Four model, delivering all-wheel-drive performance by providing electric drive to the front and rear axles.“

Furthermore, the Toyota RAV4 PHEV comes with four modes to choose from, EV mode is the default setting and prioritises electric-only operation.

HV mode allows the vehicle to operate like a traditional Toyota hybrid. While the driver can select HV mode as they require.

Using the HV mode, the RAV4 PHEV extends its driving range to more than 800 km, depending on driven conditions and the other model is the auto EV/HV mode which grants the driver an opportunity to switch between pure electric and hybrid modes, based on acceleration input required.

It is also reported that the average home charge will range between seven and nine hours and mode 3 permits fast DC charging via dedicated charging stations, thus reducing charging time to 2.5 hours when using a 32A, 6.6 kW charger.