Published August 16, 2012
By Jeff Cobb
Including an $810 destination charge, the sticker price will actually be $50,610. Tax incentives of $2,500 in California, and $7,500 federally will be available.
Toyota has been issuing videos to get the word out for its California-market RAV4 EV, designed in collaboration with Tesla using its electric motor drive technology.
As revealed in Los Angeles in May, the just over $50,000 vehicle is said to offer range of approximately 100 miles, charging time of approximately six hours using a 240-volt/40-amp fast home charger, and is much sleeker than the early electric RAV4.
The new front-wheel drive RAV4 EV was designed in California where it is for now to be exclusively sold, and it is being built in Canada instead of the home market.
It is estimated that about 750 of the 1997-2003 Japanese-made electric RAV4s are still on the road, in the hands of often loyal fans. This new model boasts a 0-60 time of 8.6 seconds in normal mode, and 7 seconds in sport, a virtual quantum leap from the 18 seconds estimated for the early model.
Following are three of the five videos thus far produced by Toyota, and narrated by its Sheldon Brown, executive program manager Product Development Office, Toyota Technical Center.
The first gives some background on the collaboration with Tesla Motors; the second general overview has some similar content, but is more succinct; the third explains the coefficient of drag. This latter one was just released at the end of July, so we thought now would be a good time to catch you up on Toyota's efforts.
<object width="610" height="343">><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BfO3_SG26So?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0">/></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true">/></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always">/></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BfO3_SG26So?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="610" height="343" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true">></embed></object>
<object width="610" height="343">><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RBohDk61TY0?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0">/></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true">/></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always">/></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RBohDk61TY0?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="610" height="343" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true">></embed></object>
<object width="610" height="343">><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZN6qpUbba0Q?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0">/></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true">/></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always">/></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZN6qpUbba0Q?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="610" height="343" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true">></embed></object>
