The 2026 Toyota RAV4 GR Sport Is An Unexpected Plug-In Performance Hybrid Driver’s SUV
For the past three decades, the Toyota RAV 4 has been a comfortable, fuelefficient, reliable, and practical family car for your everyday driving. However, if you’re a driving enthusiast, this is where the RAV 4 has always come up short. Because while Toyota has always offered an XSE trim level in the past, sadly, it really didn’t live up to its sporty driving pretentions. Well, for 2026, the RAV 4 has been fully redesigned, now in its sixth generation. And Toyota is introducing a new Halo model specifically tuned for driving enthusiasts. It’s called the RAV 4 GR Sport. And to create this monster, Toyota actually went to the mad scientists over at Gazu Racing to essentially tweak the suspension, chassis, steering, and fortify this thing with the most powerful powertrain in the segment, a plug-in hybrid good for up to 324 horsepower with all-wheel drive as standard. So, today we’re actually out here in Mesa, Arizona, because we’re finally able to get behind the wheel of the first ever GR Sport Rav 4. And the big question I want answered, has Toyota succeeded in creating the ultimate driving RAV 4? Stay tuned to find out. [Music] [Music] So, I must admit I was pretty skeptical when I saw that Toyota was doing a GR Sport version of the RAV 4. I mean, they don’t even do a GR Sport version of the Camry. But, of course, to create this model, Toyota decided to equip this thing with their most powerful production powertrain ever for a plug-in hybrid. This has the most power in the segment. It combines a 2 and a half liter gasoline direct injection four-cylinder. It’s part of their dynamic force engine family with three electric motors. There’s two at the front and then a separate electric motor that gives you electronic all-wheel drive. That’s going to be standard, of course. The gas engine on its own delivers 183 horsepower and 173 foot-lbs of torque, while the electric motor adds another 201 horsepower and 203 pound- feet of torque. The electric motors actually draw their power from a larger 22.7 kWh battery pack, which means Toyota says the combined output for this plug-in hybrid version. In fact, all the plug-in hybrids Ravs uh RAV 4s now have 324 horsepower. That’s a nice 22 horsepower increase versus the previous generation. And it also makes this car have 20 more horsepower than the luxury equivalent of this vehicle, the current Lexus NX. Now, it all goes out through an electronic CVT transmission. So, it’s not a traditional CVT, it’s an ECVT. And fuel economy is rated at 41 in the city and 34 on the highway. This is going to be the least efficient version of the plug-in hybrid powertrain because remember, you can get the plug-in hybrid now on more trims, including the SE, the XSE, and the woodland grain. We’re going to try to show you guys a separate video on the wood woodland grain, which also has the plug-in hybrid as available. Now, that 22.7 kWh battery pack allows this model here to travel up to 48 miles on pure electricity. The Woodland model uh increases that to 50 or 49, while the XSE and SE give you a maximum of 52 miles. So that’s a 10 mile improvement over the previous generation. That’s a nice uh increase. While in terms of charging, the charge port is actually going to be located here on the passenger side fender. And what’s interesting about the GR Sport version of the car is it has a 7 kW onboard charger, which means if you want to plug this thing onto a level two at your home or a public charger, Toyota says it’ll take roughly 3 and 1 half hours. is if you guys go for the XSE or the Woodland trim, Toyota actually offers a CCS combo plug, which means you can fast charge this vehicle up to 50 kW, which Toyota says you can go from 10 to 80% in about 35 minutes. The reason why they don’t have the fast charger on the GR Sport is because of weight savings because remember this model wants to be more the performanceoriented version. Now, Toyota doesn’t quote a 0 to 60 time, but the old RAV 4 Prime or plug-in hybrid could do 0 to 60 in the mid-5 second range. I wouldn’t be surprised this to see this model get closer to 5 seconds. We’ll try it out when we get on the road. Toyota didn’t announce the top speed, but this model also comes with 20-in wheels on a summer performance tire. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this thing hit like around 140ish miles an hour. Sadly, however, the GR Sport is not rated to tow, and I think that has to do again with the performance intentions of this model. If you’re looking at the SE, the XSSE, or the Woodland, it’ll be able to tow a maximum of 3500 lb. Curb weight, this is obviously going to be a lot heavier versus the standard hybrid, which Toyota doesn’t offer on the GR Sport. Curb weight for this model is around 4,400 lb. Keep in mind the XSE and Woodland trim is around 80 lbs heavier because of the additional equipment that it has that the GR Sport is simply not available with. But let’s go ahead and close up the hood here, which as you can see is still supported by a prop rod. Gives you a reason to buy a Lexus because Toyota again wants to, you know, show you that the this is supposed to be the more affordable car. But let’s talk about the exterior styling because this model is now part of the sixth generation of the RAV 4 family built on a heavily modified version of the TGAK architecture. And this version here, as you can see, is painted in supersonic red with the two-tone black roof. This color combination is exclusive to the GR Sport. You used to be able to get this on the XSSE, but sadly Toyota now only offers it on the GR Sport. You can see it pairs nicely with the black accented Toyota logo. This kind of unique front fascia, which has this kind of larger honeycomb front grill area with the GR badging. This is all allowing for functional air to kind of pass through because the engine is going to need the cooling. In fact, a lot of the front fascia paired up with the hammerhead headlights. These are the upgraded projector style premium LEDs which have an LED daytime running light, LED turn signal, LED low and high beam. That’s a projector style. And you also have this LED accent light here. This piece right here kind of reminds me of the updated GR Corolla. You can really see that it’s part of the GR engine family or the GR performance family. You can see the front splitter is also uh a little bit more aggressive on this model. And Toyota technically lowered the suspension by 15 mm which allows for around 7 1/2 in of ground clearance. So, it’s not just a look. Toyota’s actually tweaked the hardware to give you a much more aggressive stance and improved handling dynamics. You do get a front camera system uh standard on this trim along with parking sensors and in the supersonic red. I think this is definitely the preferred color combination. This is the halo choice, although I would like to see this car in their windshield pearl with the two-tone black. Uh Toyota sadly didn’t have that color for us to view uh on this early first drive. All right. Now, moving around the side profile, you can see being built on the same architecture means uh the dimensions stay pretty much the same, but what you’re looking at here for this GR Sport is the longest version of the sixth generation RAV 4, and that’s because of the much more aggressive front and rear bumper. So, at an overall length of 182.9 in long, uh, and the same 105.9 in wheelbase, it’s the same as the previous generation, but it’s around uh three inches or two inches longer versus other trim levels of the Toyota RAV 4. You can see the wheels are also unique to the GR Sport. They’re still a 20-in wheel with this really nice two-tone machine and gloss black inner painted pocket. It’s kind of got like a double five-spoke design. Toyota says they’ve also increased the offset of these wheels, even though the tires are the same size as an XSSE. So, it’s riding on a 235x 50 Dunlop SP Sport Max. So, summer performance tires are actually standard on this vehicle. So, it kind of shows Toyota’s sporting intentions. Although, that will kind of annoy a lot of buyers who live in a snowbl. Brakes are also larger on the GR Sport, or technically they’re larger just on the plug-in hybrids. 12.9 inch rotors at the front, 12-in rotors at the back. So, they’re an inch larger at the front, one and a half inches larger at the back versus the standard hybrid. The GR does include these red painted calibers, but they are just a single floating design. I was kind of hoping Toyota would put like a Brembo or four piston caliper to kind of increase the actual braking performance, but at least you have larger rotors. The suspension has been completely overhauled. They are GR tuned specific dampers, especially at the front with that lower ride height. improve uh aggress more aggressive steering tuning. So Toyota says this model isn’t just about the looks. They also claim it’s going to deliver the performance that you’re looking for. The gloss black wheel arch trim pairs nicely, of course, with the supersonic red. The mirror, as you can see, is also uh it allows for manual folding, but it’s not a power folding feature. You have integrated turn signals, 360 camera. It’s gloss black, which pairs nicely, of course, with the gloss black roof. And then you’re also noticing this model lacks roof rails, which I’m not sure if you can add it as a dealer accessory. And you’re also noticing there’s no sunroof. Toyota doesn’t even offer a sunroof, a standard sunroof or pano roof on the GR Sport. I imagine that has to do with the weight savings, but I also think it has to do with cost cutting. I really was disappointed to see that a sunroof is not available on this vehicle. And then follow me over to the rear, you can see the design of this car is very distinctive, especially on the GR Sport, which going to catch your eye immediately, is this massive wing on the back. Now, it’s a relative term, but I have to say this is the biggest wing that I’ve ever seen on a Rav. It actually has like a stacked design to it. Toyota actually claims this adds functional downforce. Now, they didn’t tell us how much in terms of pounds of functional downforce, but I guess I’ll just take their word for it. It certainly looks good with the black roof, the red accents. You have the third brake light integrated there. Rear wiper sits at the bottom of the glass. And then you can see the all LED taillights from the other trims carry carries over here with those vertical LED slats. It’s a full LED tail light design. Uh, and they don’t appear to be any darker on the GR Sport. All of them kind of have this dark out look. I am surprised to see that the RAV 4 badging here is actually silver. It’s got that black accented super tiny Toyota badge there. And then of course you can see it’s got that new Beyond Zero badge there with the PV spelled out in black with all drive. There’s also a very large GR Sport badge there. Remember GR Sport is designed to not be quite as aggressive as full-on GR, but hey, Toyota’s kind of going in the right direction here by at least giving it some upgrades. The rear bumper is also a unique to the GR Sport. It has some unpainted cladding with some gloss black integrated parking sensors. It’s got the uh camera of course back here. The one thing this car should have added, however, was a dual chrome tip exhaust or a quad exhaust. I’m really disappointed to see it’s not here. You do have dual exhaust tips underneath, but they’re just kind of tucked underneath the vehicle and you can’t really see them. Uh, and this vehicle uh obviously doesn’t have the ability to tow, so there’s no tow hitch. I imagine uh that’s something that owners are going to complain about. I think Toyota should have kept the towing capacity on this model because it’s an SUV. You should still be able to tow. Now, in terms of the cargo area, you can see a a power lift gate is going to be standard on this trim. And the downside with the plug-in hybrid models or all the plug-in hybrids is you do have slightly less cargo capacity. However, unless you have the regular hybrid next to you, you’re not going to really notice it. Toyota says with the back seats up, you have around 33.6 cubic feet of storage space. You can see the floor is raised up a little bit. There’s a nice little mat here with the GR logo. And surprisingly, if you look underneath here, you still get a spare tire, a temporary spare tire. I was not expecting to find that. And that’s because the battery pack lives underneath the midsection of the vehicle underneath the floor. So, they did a really great job with the packaging, but it still necessitated them for kind of raising up the floor. When I fold down the back seats here, you can see there’s no release lever, but if you fold them down from that angle here, Toyota claims that the maximum cargo capacity is around 63.6 cubic feet of storage space. So, that’s a reduction of around 6 cubic feet on the top end uh versus the regular hybrid version. But I like the fact that the floor still remains mostly flat and this is still a pretty generous cargo area despite the fact that the battery for this model got around 20% larger. Now, once you move past the slightly boy racer looks of the GR Sport on the outside, you’re going to notice Toyota has made some changes to the interior, especially when you’re comparing it to other versions of the brand new redesigned Rav 4. Now, I hope you guys like a black interior because typically Toyota for their performanceoriented models only offers it with a black interior with red contrast stitching and piping. So, as you can see, the seats are kind of an upgraded, more aggressively bolstered version of the seats in the XSE. They’re covered in a combination of the brin knob, which is a synthetic suede material with their soft text leatherrett. It has the contrast stitching and piping. It has the GR uh brand in the actual head restraints. These seats are three-level heated. You have an eight-way or 10-way power driver seat, a six-way manual passenger seat. But what confuses me is when I was reading the spec sheet, this trim is supposed to come with heated and ventilated seats and memory seats. As you can see over here, there are no memory seats. So, I’m not entirely sure if this is just an early pre-production model and it’s missing those features or if it’s a typo and this trim is not supposed to have ventilated seats. I’ll find out that later on and I’ll post it as a pinned comment in the video later on. You can see the door panel materials on this trim are definitely nicer versus the last one that I saw at HQ Confidential around 5 months ago. You have a soft touch injection molded plastic here. More of that synthetic soft text right here on this area where you’d rest your elbow. We have a gray painted plastic door handle. Of course, window controls are onetouch for all four. No power folding mirrors, but your mirror controls are here. Memory seats would go here if this car had it. And then down here, you can see it’s kind of a cheaper plastic, but lots of additional storage. But I really like how at least Toyota kept the touch points right here, uh, when they were, you know, thinking about this car. There’s also alloy sport pedals that’s included when you guys go for the GR Sport. This is the only trim to have the alloy pedals. So, it’s a nice little bright work there to kind of break up break up the sea of black that you see with this within this interior. I do wish the Toyota would offer a red interior at some point. Now, as I get in with 7 and 12 inches of ground clearance, it has that typical easy step in height, but it also feels a smidge lower than the XSSE that I got out of earlier today. As I shut the door, the door has a more solid sounding thunk here versus the XSE. So, I think that has to do with the additional structural bracing that Toyota added for this trim. So, that’s a nice plus. It adds to that impression of quality. Now, here’s the key fob for the vehicle. You can see this is Toyota’s standard intelligent access key with, of course, the GR logo back here instead of the RAV 4 logo. So, that makes you feel like you have a special model. You have your typical buttons here for lock, unlock, power lift gate, and then a panic function. Um, that’s standard equipment on all GRS. And then you can see start, stop button is right here, kind of blocked by the steering wheel. But when you turn it on, because this model is only available as a plug-in hybrid, there’s no traditional starter noise. Instead, the chime has that traditional Toyota chime. The engine or the car just wors to life. It says ready in the instrument panel. And then with the GR Sport, the positioning of this car, it does come with their upgraded and larger 12.9 in touchscreen, which has their newer Toyota audio multimedia interface 2.0, which is part of their Aren software, which this is the first vehicle to introduce it. You can see my phone connected wirelessly automatically via the CarPlay. There’s also Android Auto over the air updates. Uh the screen quality and the graphics are also much improved versus the prior generation. You can see the native uh shortcut buttons remain over there. can tap that, it’ll actually expand it out and that looks really impressive. This screen is not the largest in the class. But compared to the previous generation which topped out at 10 and a half inches, now you top out at almost 13 in. This is a big upgrade and I like the fact that Toyota kept traditional buttons and a volume knob here. Dual zone automatic climate control is standard equipment across all trims of the RAV 4. And you can see it’s very quick and snappy and responsive. When you go back to the native system here, there’s a brand new home screen. As you can see, this home screen has much better graphics and it’s also customizable. So, you can go into here into customize and rearrange the order of how you want the typical widgets to go. Love that feature. That’s something that I complained that Toyota didn’t have previously, but they also kept, of course, that uh there on the side where you can still kind of access the native system quickly. There’s the built-in embedded GPS. It’s a cloud-based system. The graphics have definitely gotten better. There’s still nothing super special, but most people again are probably going to end up using the um the wireless CarPlay Android Auto where you can go here and you can go to Google Maps for example and check that out. That looks incredible, especially when you make the screen full screen. That looks really nice, very much improved versus the prior generation. And Toyota also improved the center or the instrument panel here for the driver display where you can essentially put the GPS function now in the screen. So that’s the traditional two dial look. I can also cycle over to the GPS. You can see that brings up, uh, Apple CarPlay maps, uh, which is nice. You can also go to a traditional just a driver assistance screen, a graphic screen there to show, you know, your fuel economy information, a simple just digital speedometer, of course, and you can also go to a single dial look. So, there’s a lot more customization with this screen, and it also shows a graphic when I change the drive mode selector. There’s a choice between four modes, including a custom mode where you can custom tailor it. Most of the times, I guess, enthusiasts are going to be driving it in the sport mode. We’ll try it out when we get the vehicle out on the road later on. When I put the vehicle into reverse, you can see there’s your full 360 camera, which includes trajectory, distance markers, uh, cross traffic, braking, of course, the quality, and the resolution has gone up tremendously. And when I push this button here, you can see it brings up a 360 perimeter scan where I can actually utilize this like a smartphone where I can like zoom around the vehicle. I can pinch to get a little bit closer here. The quality and resolution is so much better. It has this really cool see-through view effect where you can actually, you know, use this to your advantage if you’re trying to park the car. So, this is a big improvement over the, you know, silly, you know, 360 perimeter scan of the prior generation. This is again Toyota listening and significantly improving the quality of their technology of this vehicle. Now, you can see the lower portion also always shows off the climate control function. So, if I click that, you can also expand the climate view if you like and adjust the vents. Uh, it just has again the two-le heated seats, the heated steering wheel on this trim. Uh, but again, it should have cooled seats. So, I’ll talk about that in a pinned comment later on once I confirm. In terms of the materials on the dashboard, you can see the soft touch here does not carry over onto this upper portion. Instead, you have a very cheap scratchy feeling plastic, which this is an early prototype, but I have a feeling this is going to be the final spec. You have some low gloss gray plastic here. There is a nice, you know, soft text here where it’s nice and padded. This grading material feels a little bit nicer, but it is again still hard touch plastic. There’s a nice little shelf there. The glove compartment, you can see, is damped, but not lined with felt. It’s a decent bin style, of course. And then your drive mode selector is here where you can adjust the drive modes. You can switch between EV or hybrid mode. There’s also a trail and snow mode. And then there’s like a big normal button here. I actually think this is kind of a waste of real estate. They really should have kept a tuning volume here or tuning knob like in the prior generation. Your wireless phone charging pad is here. The GR Sport does not offer the dual wireless charging pads like you can get on the Limited trim. And then you can see unlike the XSSE that I showed you uh earlier today, this model has the the I guess less powerful 15 watt uh USBC charging ports, there’s also a nice little m pad over here where this also is supposed to be a little bit more uh I guess rubberized so your stuff doesn’t flail around. The GR Sport has a more traditional shifter to control the ECVT with a sport mode here. That’s the XSSE did not have that. And you also have these paddle shifters, which Toyota said they were aluminum paddle shifters, but to me they’re plastic. So, I don’t know if that was just a the the product planner misspoke, but this is the only trim along with the XSE plug-in hybrid to offer the paddles. It’s optional on the XSSE plug-in hybrid standard on the GR Sport. It offers, you know, different ratios. We’ll try that out later on. You have electronic parking brake uh over here with a brake hold function. You can see the the cup holders. They’re pretty good size. You can also take this out if you need to put something larger here or clean out the cup holder area. Love the fact that Toyota didn’t put piano black plastic here or even here. It’s all just a glossy or low gloss gray plastic here which is going to be more durable. And then you can see the center console is uh padded covered in that vinyl material. It also opens up from the driver’s side or the passenger side or you can push on both buttons and take the lid off and you can also reposition it to use this as kind of like a table. There’s inscription here to let people know that you shouldn’t be accelerating quickly while putting food or drinks here cuz it’s going to spill. I mean that’s kind of like a hello moment. It should you should know that. The center console area is also relatively deep. Your USBC charging port is also there. That’s to connect it via a smartphone. If you don’t want to use the wireless, you can also uh use that uh via a wired connection there. So, this is a nice touch, but what I don’t like is when this is latched on one side, it kind of has like a cheap feeling to it. So, I want to say it’s an early pre-production, but I have a feeling that’s going to be the finalized setup. Now, above me, you can see sadly no sunroof is available. Not even a regular sunroof. Instead, Toyota, you know, gave us plenty of headroom, which I guess is good if you’re going to wear a helmet in here, but come on, let’s be honest. how many people are going to actually track their GR Sport Rav 4. And then these seats, the Alcantara definitely does a great job of holding you in place. They have perforations already, which means they should be ventilated, but this model is not. Uh, and then you can see you just have a sixway manual on this side. An 8-way power would have been nice. Again, you get those features included on the XSSE trim. So, there’s some features that the GR Sport is lacking, including a head-up display. You cannot get a head-up head-up display on this model, but it is uh standard equipment on the XSE plug-in hybrid. So, kind of keep that in mind. And so overall, the interior, while it’s not the most luxurious feeling, it does have some nice upgrades here like the GR badging, the red stitching, and the more aggressive seats. But overall, it’s still a very practical vehicle with tons of space, great technology, and I think people who are looking for just a family car are still going to really like the interior of the GR Sport version. But let’s go ahead and show you guys that back seat area real quick. Because while the RAV 4 is still the same size on the outside, the back seat space has basically been preserved. Now, as you can see, Toyota kept the combination of the suede and the soft text synthetic leather back here. You do still have the red contrast stitching. These seats do have a recline function, as you can see, or you can fold them down to create um almost perfectly flat load floor, which is nice. But once you get back here, you can see the space is definitely usable, but it’s not class leading. So, this is basically my driving position. Toyota says you have around 37.8 in of legroom, which as you can see, there’s good foot space underneath here. There’s a hump here for the center passenger. You do have rear seat air vents, two USBC charging ports. No heated back seats though is available on this trim. You have two storage cubbies. And then the material quality back here is the same as the front. So, it’s a soft touch injection molded plastic. More of that soft text here. Padded area here where you’d rest your elbow. It’s all hard touch here, of course, for additional storage. No retractable shades. Toyota doesn’t even offer that on the Limited trim. Some competitors do offer that. And then in terms of the headroom, you can see tons like 6 in of additional headroom clearance. So, this is great if you guys have taller friends. And if you want to fold this down, you can see there’s an armrest with two cup holders. So unlike something like, let’s say, a GR Corolla, if you’re, you know, trying to trade out of that because you need more space, the GR Sport Rav 4 can actually accommodate, you know, a family of four people, uh, in good comfort. So, I was pretty shocked when Toyota announced that they were going to do a GR Sport version of the RAV 4, but I’m also happy that they took the mission seriously by giving this car upgraded suspension, the plug-in hybrid powertrain. We have up to 324 horsepower on this model. And let’s go ahead and test out the 0 to 60 really quick. So, the car is already in sport mode here. We’re just going to brake torque it. All right, on our first run there, we got 5.47 seconds there. And that I want to also point out that’s at around 1500 ft above sea level. And I also have an extra person, Rob, next to me, who clearly adds so much weight to the car. But we’ll wait until we get one back home to test out uh when I’m just by myself at sea level cuz I suspect this car is going to be closer to that 5second mark, which is honestly very impressive if Toyota can do that because remember the weight of this car is around 4,400 lb. It has a similar weight as the prior generation uh which had 22 less horsepower. And the other great thing about the GR Sport is the, you know, these 20-in wheels with the uh adaptive, you know, GR tuned dampers, they actually noticeably make the ride feel a little bit stiffer, but at the same time, I don’t find it to be incredibly punishing. The roads here have are not great. There’s a lot of ruts, a lot of bumps. Um, but I am noticing there’s a little bit of impact harshness coming through. Uh, the dampers on this car are just sport tuned, but I don’t think they’re actually adjustable dynamically where you can push a button and make them a little bit softer. But overall, uh, the car accelerates with a nice push. Now, sadly, if you’re looking for like a more pleasant sounding exhaust, there’s nothing changed here with the exhaust. You still have a naturally aspirated four-cylinder, and it’s not a very pleasant sounding engine, but it’s also not quite as noisy as the XSE that I tested just earlier today. And that’s because of the electric motor. powertrain offers up to 201 horsepower from the electric side, which means if I switch it into its EV mode here, we’re actually starting out at 94% state of charge, which is good because I do want to test out the EV charging or the EV electric only of acceleration of this car, which I remember the electric only acceleration of the prior generation did it in around 9 seconds, something like that. 0 to 60. So, let’s go ahead and see what we can get just 0 to 60 wise here. The road is still pretty flat and we’re going to just floor it. Still in sport mode. And what’s great about this car is I can have my foot all the way to the floor and it will stay in pure electric only mode, which is fantastic. Now getting up to speed here, we got 0 to 60 in 8.92 seconds there. Now that’s with it more like a small like 1% increase there which isn’t too bad but 8.9 I would probably suspect at a level ground at sea level you’re probably looking at around 8 1/2 seconds maybe even a little bit better than that so that’s nice and that’s what’s great about the plug-in hybrid model when you have such a larger battery pack 22.7 uh kilowatt hours this thing um should be able to drive on pure electricity a lot longer and you can essentially put your foot down all the way and it doesn’t actually you wake up the gas engine, which is not not something that its competitors are able to do. So, I really very much appreciate how, you know, Toyota is giving you uh that option here. In terms of the driving, the visibility in the GR Sport model is pretty similar to other versions of the RAV 4. You can see the view out of the front is nice. This A-pillar is a little bit larger. The view out of the back is also pretty good because it’s pretty much completely upright. So, I really like how you can see out of the back nicely. Toyota sadly does not offer their digital camera style rearview mirror on this trim. And I also would love to see Toyota do a sunroof on this vehicle. The brakes, they are uh the same size as the other plug-in hybrid versions, but I would like to see Toyota do upgraded calipers. Um just upgraded, you know, more bite when you put your foot down. They feel pretty solid at first, but if you’re planning to actually track this vehicle, which I don’t expect people to actually track this car, um that would be, you know, something that I’d be concerned with with just a single piston floating caliper. Again, with this being a pure plug-in hybrid, uh you can drive this vehicle on electric power alone. The seats also the brin knob soft text whatever. Uh they do do a better job at holding you in place which is nice but they also don’t have super aggressive bolsters. So if you guys are a little bit of wider frame uh that’s something to keep in mind. I’m actually going to switch the drive mode here to its auto EV and HV mode because there’s some cars coming and we’re going to put our foot down. All right. So when you have it in hybrid mode, this is where you’re going to get the full 324 horsepower. And again, this is going to have plenty of power for most. I mean, in this class of vehicle, the RAV 4 plug-in hybrid has the most power in the segment. This has more power versus something like the Volkswagen T1 turbo. More power than the Mazda CX-5 Turbo or CX-50 Turbo. And of course, with that ECVT with an actual sport mode here, you can, you know, get a little bit of driving enjoyment, which speaking of which, this car also has paddle shifters. Um, if you start using the paddles, it looks like there’s only a total of six virtual ratios. Now remember this is an ECVT. There are no fixed gears here. But when you start pulling the paddle, you can see it kind of does a decent Actually, it doesn’t do anything. I’m kidding. Uh in terms of just rev matching, there’s not even attack in sport mode. I was kind of hoping this car would give me attack, but it only lets me go to basically third gear and when I start pulling the paddles, it’s basically useless. So, I’m actually kind of questioning why the paddles are even here. I feel like they’re only here as just a marketing ploy cuz I don’t think owners are going to use the paddle shifters at all. Now, you can use a little bit of regen braking on this car, which will be nice if you guys, you know, are, you know, driving on mountain roads a lot. You’re going downhill. Uh, but what I noticed here at 80 mph, the noise levels in this car are better. There’s less road noise, less wind noise. We are on these like stickier summer performance tires, of course, uh, which are going to be a little bit noisier in general. I imagine some owners are probably going to swap out the summer tires and put on some good allseasons because this is still an SUV. You need to be able to drive it in all weather conditions. But the ride on this smoother pavement here is definitely much improved. And I like the fact that the road noise has been, you know, hushed a little bit along with the wind noise and the engine noise is less when you guys go for the plug-in hybrid models courtesy of that much larger battery pack. Now, unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to test out the electric only range on this car uh because again, we only have it for a very short amount of time to do this drive loop, but um Toyota claims this model is good for up to 49 mi or 48 mi of pure electric only range. When you combine that with the uh gas engine and the the 14 and a half gallon fuel tank, you’re looking at around, you know, 200 or I’m sorry, 580 miles of total range, which is not a lot, but it’s certainly much more usable. The steering in this car is also relatively quick. It feels much heavier versus the XSSE. And you can also tell the suspension feels a little stiffer in this car. It it feels like it has less body roll, but it also still does have body roll. So, this is definitely a big improvement. It’s it’s also the most dynamic handling raft for ever. So Toyota accomplished their mission in giving us a Rav that is for driving enthusiasts, but you kind of have to moderate your expectations here. This is not going to be like a BMW X3, for example, or even like an Audi SQ5. But it’s nice that Toyota has the option. It really shows that they are trying to make their cars a lot more fun to drive. So I’ll be looking forward to getting this car for a full week. We can do some range testing. We can do electric only testing and see how it does there uh in terms of real world driving. But overall, from a driving perspective, the GR Sport essentially just takes everything that you like about the XSE and just makes the car a lot more dynamic, a little bit more sticky, and it has a much quieter engine noise because of the additional power that you get from the electric only side. So, it’s been almost a decade since Toyota’s CEO AO made the bold claim that the company would no longer be building boring cars. And while that still very much is the case for some models, the fact that we have a GR Sport branded RAV 4 is kind of a big deal from a driving perspective. And after spending the full day here driving the all-new 2026 Toyota RAV 4 GR Sport, I have to say, I am quite surprised with just how good this car drives. As you guys saw, the plug-in hybrid powertrain was the right choice. I just kind of wish Toyota would have done something with the sound of the engine. I know it’s still a naturally aspirated four-cylinder, but something that has a little bit more pops or crack. Well, something that just has a little bit more visceral experience would have improved the accel improved the actual, you know, time behind the wheel. Acceleration is very good. We got 5.4 seconds or 5 5.47 seconds 0 to 60. I suspect this car will probably be closer to the 5-second mark when we get one back home for a week. I’m also surprised that the electric only 0 to 60 time was under 9 seconds. Now, I expect it to also be closer to the 8 and a half, maybe even closer to the low 8 second range, which is a big improvement because Toyota made uh the electric motors much more powerful. You have a bigger battery pack. Everything about the powertrain here, their sixth generation hybrid synergy drive just makes this car a lot better. So, I’m very impressed, of course, with what Toyota is able to do uh with this vehicle. Now, in terms of the handling dynamics, this car’s suspension upgrades certainly make this the most dynamic RAV 4 ever, but at the same time, it’s not going to be a car that you’re going to be looking for, you know, a track with. It’s just going to make this car more enjoyable on your favorite back roads. It essentially drives how I wanted an XSSE RAV 4 to drive because the regular XSSE is still much too soft. This finally has a little bit more of that button-down European firmness, especially in the suspension and the steering while also not affecting the ride quality too much. Although I’ll have to wait until I get one back home to test it out on some, you know, broken pavement. The quietness of the interior also got a big upgrade. The technology also got big improvements. The interior space is still pretty much average. So, if you’re looking for a more spacious vehicle, some of its rivals are going to offer that. Really, Volkswagen’s Tiguan Turbo uh is going to be a good rival to this vehicle. Although, I do find the Rav’s driving dynamics to be a little bit sportier versus the Volkswagen because technically the VW is not a full-on like Tiguan GTI. Although, that’s something that enthusiasts have been begging Volkswagen to do for quite some time now. If you’re looking to get your hands on the plug-in hybrid version of the RAV 4, you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer because the regular hybrid model is going to be hitting dealership showrooms in December of this year, so around a couple months. Unfortunately, this model Toyota says is going to be delayed until the spring or Q1 of 2026, which also includes, of course, the GR Sport because this is again only available as the plug-in hybrid version. In terms of pricing, we can only speculate speculate here because Toyota didn’t have final pricing figures just yet available. The current generation plug-in hybrid X or SE version starts at around 38 or just $39,000. Uh, an XSE model was around $45,000 fully loaded. you can easily get those up to be well into the $50,000 mark. Which means if I was going to guess how much this car model cost, I actually think I would position this car at the same level as a fully loaded XSSE plug-in hybrid. Which means something like this I would estimate is probably going to be around $55,000, which I know sounds expensive, but remember this is a very unique option in the segment. You’re not going to find a mainstream SUV that has this much power, this much performance, this much handling, this technology, this much electric only range. So, if you want something that’s super unique and you also favor driving dynamics, I would have to say Toyota has definitely created the most engaging dynamic RAV 4 ever, but just make sure you manage your expectations. If you’re coming out of like a sports car, like a Supra or a GR Corolla, this is definitely going to still be much more toward the comfort side. But with all that said, hope you guys have enjoyed my full overview on the brand new 2026 Toyota RAV 4 GR Sport. If you’re also looking to see the latest cars I’m testing, be sure to follow me on Instagram at Redline_views. Like us on Facebook, and as always, guys, please keep subscribing to the Redline Reviews YouTube channel for all the latest reviews. Thank you so much for watching. I’ll catch you all in the next video. [Music]
The fully redesigned 6th generation #ToyotaRAV4 continues to push boundaries and #Toyota is ready to surprise people who enjoy driving with the first-ever #ToyotaRAV4GRSport. As the first #GRSport branded vehicle in America, the new 2026 #RAV4GRSport is only offered as a #PlugInHybrid with a powerful combination of a 2.5L 4-cylinder and 3-electric motors to send 324 HP to all four wheels. This combination gives the #RAV4 best-in-class power and fuel efficiency, while also including suspension hardware upgrades to make this the best handling RAV4 to date.
We’re also on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/redline_reviews
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liketheredline
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tweettheredline
