What’s it like to drive the new 2026 Toyota Rav4 PHEV Woodland?
Hey guys, we’re back at Saguara Lake. This time with another RAV 4. This redesigned 2026 model comes with two powertrains. I’ve driven three or four. I’m on losing count of the standard hybrid models and they’re fantastic. In fact, I just drove the standard Woodland, the standard hybrid with 236 horsepower. Absolutely fantastic experience. But now I have in the Everest color here, uh the plug-in hybrid. This sixth generation plug-in hybrid has 324 horsepower. It’s got a bigger battery pack than last generation’s plug-in hybrid. How good is it? And is it really worth the money? Well, first of all, I don’t know pricing, but does it drive different enough to even consider spending the extra money? Let’s say it cost four grand more than the standard woodland. That’s just a guess. Does it drive different? Is it a better driving vehicle? Is it more fun to drive? Is it more luxurious? All that stuff. Well, today I’ll show you. [Music] Lifting the hood here, we actually have some different uh engine covers. Okay, same engine, but we have more electrical assist up front. We have a 200 horsepower electric motor up front uh with about 200 lb feet of torque as well. Now, the plug-in hybrids are standard four-wheel drive or you could say all-wheel drive. And so the electrical motor assist in the back is they don’t Toyota doesn’t give us horsepower numbers for that motor in the back. My guess would be around 40 to 50, but it gives you about 90 pound feet of torque in that motor in the back. All right. So there’s a 22.7 kWh battery here that is going to give you about 50 miles of range. A little bit less on some trims like the GR Sport plug-in hybrid. You know, the SE plug-in hybrid will get you the most at 52. This will probably be about 4950 miles of electric range. And then when you run out out of that electric range, you’re running in hybrid mode, which just depending if you’re on the highway, maybe it’s mid30s. If you’re in town, maybe it’s closer to 40. All right. It’s a fantastic powertrain. And they have updated the charging on it. Okay, let’s come to the side here. The charging port right here on the driver’s side. Okay, this is a CCS level one port. All right, so you can DC fast charge this. Um, and you can get this about 10 to 80% probably around 30 minutes. All right, you can also plug this into a level one or level two and it will peak level two charge at 11 kilowatts. That’s really, really, really fast. It’ll probably only take you about 2 and 1/2 hours. Um, now not all the plug-in hybrids have this port. Some of them just have a J1772 port which will charge at about 6.6 kW and they don’t have DC fast charging. This model as well as the XSSE plug-in hybrid, those have the DC fast charging, the faster AC charging. I know it’s complex, but you know, all of them will be able to plug in at home, no problem. All right. Well, the Everest color is absolutely breathtaking. It’s beautiful. It debuted on the 4Runner. I haven’t seen it on the 4Runner in a long time and it’s stunning here. I love the six-spoke wheels, the all-terrain tires. I just off-roaded the standard hybrid. It’s very capable. It’s held back by, I would say, ground clearance more than anything. There are no skid plates or anything. We also have the Rigid Industries fog lights here, which is unique to the Woodland trims. All right. Some of the other models have fog lights somewhere in here, for example. I love the blocky front end of the Woodland. I think it’s the best looking uh Toyota RAV 4 for 2026. All right, this piece is also unique to the Woodland. And you see this silver trim on the nicer headlight uh headlight displays. Those are daytime running lights. You still have by LED uh headlights there. All right. Standard are the roof racks uh with the crossmembers. All right. You also have glossy door handles and glossy mirrors. Uh, and a nice little woodland badge there. Glossy shark fit antenna. We have the woodland badge back here. All woodlands come standard with the tow hitch. These can tow around 3,000 lbs. All-wheel drive badge. Pave instead of the heav on the standard hybrid. All right. Cargo shouldn’t be too much compromised here. As we look in the back, uh, got that woodland mat. Got a little bit of a spare tire in here. I appreciate that. I think the spare tire sits a little bit deeper in the standard hybrid models. All right. The battery pack sits actually on the bottom in the bottom underneath the floor of in the middle of the vehicle. All right. Uh here we go. Here’s your 1500 watt. You can get this also on I think the XSSE plug-in hybrid gets it as well as the standard hybrid woodland. Really huge fan of that 1500 watt accessory power. We got a power lift gate there. All right. I like this. I like how the charging port and the gas cap are on the same side, so you can’t mess that up. Okay, the woodland seats here, they seem to be maybe a little bit different than the standard hybrid model, but they are not perforated. That’s the weakness of the woodland. The biggest weak weak of the woodland is that that we have vinyl seats here called soft text, and they’re not going to breathe that great. Uh USBC’s here. We also have uh nice vents in the back. All weather mat or should I say the woodland mat down below. The nice mat pockets, nice materials, even softish touch here. Very durable material uh here in the back. Um no sunroof here. The standard Woodland has or should I say the Woodland hybrid, not the plug-in hybrid, has a normal uh sunroof. This does not have any sunroof. That might be a deal breaker for some of you. All right, getting into the front seat. This looks awfully familiar with the orange bar here. Uh the soft text seats, the woodland mats. Again, uh the same materials here on the door and the front little RAV 4. You secret compartment in there. That’s cool. Nice little Easter egg. So, let’s quickly go over this interior. Let’s start with the steering wheel. Amazing. Great job. Toyota leather steering wheel. Look at all these big blocky chunky buttons. A little orange stripe here for the woodland accent. This 12-in screen is highly customizable. There are tons of different uh screens you can choose from. Um or should I say uh presets. Your maps will pop up here, which is pretty cool. Even your Google maps from your phone or your Apple Maps pop up there with your phone connectivity standard on the base gradele LE. This 12-in screen. I like this 10-in screen over the 12-in screen. This does not. The Woodlands don’t come with the 12-in screen, which is a okay with me. This works really, really well. It’s just the right size uh for the vehicle. All right. Volume knob is great. The sound system on the Woodlands is pretty good to be honest, better than the XLE Premium that I tested. Uh and then there’s a a another tier of sound system with the JBL. And I don’t think you should upgrade to a trim level just get to get the JBL because the mid tier sound system is pretty decent and the Woodland has that mid-tier sound system. All right. Nice materials here on the dash. A little bit hard touch here, but I like this right here. Um, big cup holders. I love the traditional shifter on the Woodlands. The XLE had it too. Got chargers. Drive modes. This is unique. Uh, it’ll cycle through. Well, my battery is too low, but I could put it into EV mode if I wanted to. Um, but right now it’s in hybrid mode. I think what’s gone is the uh hybrid charge where the engine will charge up your traction battery. I don’t see that an option anymore. All right, let’s talk about the software. The software is new and the screen is new uh and unique to the plug-in hybrid. You cannot, if you’re in the standard hybrid, you don’t have this little lightning bolt, uh, I guess submen here. Um, there’s not a lot of stuff you can click on, but you can charge up to, you know, you can set your limits on the battery. Um, I’m curious about this. You can do also, you can even precondition your battery. You can set up schedules, fan control. It’s not physical buttons, but it still works really well. The auto works great in uh the new RAV 4. The auto climate controls, you just hammer, make it colder, the fans will speed up, that sort of thing. Really like the climate control in here. The volume knob, I can’t say enough about it. All right. I have a wireless charger here. I have this cool combo center um armrest that flips up to a table. Um I need two hands to do that, but it’s pretty cool. All right, more cargo space underneath here. I mean, it’s just a basic usable, no frrills. I should say I shouldn’t say no frrills because the tech in here is fantastic, but it’s just there’s no learning curve getting in here. And that’s what I really appreciate about the RAV 4 for 2026. They didn’t reinvent the wheel. They just simplified things and they didn’t oversimplify. They didn’t put everything into the touchcreen. We still have lots of buttons in here that I really, really appreciate, just like this physical shifter. But let’s go ahead and drive the RAV 4 plug-in hybrid. Is it worth it to buy over the standard RAV 4? Well, let’s find out. All right, we’re going to do a couple 0 to 60s here in the Woodland Pave. First time in fully electric mode. It’s great torque, great power. Definitely okay. You get a good amount of torque and power up to about 40 miles an hour and then it falls off. All right. So, 0 to 60 there and fully electric was 8.84 seconds. It was slightly downhill, 1% grade. All right. It’s a bit mountainous out here in Arizona if you can’t tell. Okay. So, it’s hard to find flat spots. All right. So, it’s about 9 seconds, I would say. 0 to 60 in fully electric. Pretty darn good, but you really only have maybe 200 horsepower available to you in fully electric. All right. So that’s why we also need to test 0 to 60 in hybrid mode. Good rad turning radius there. Holy cow. Nice job, RAV 4. Formerly known as RAV 4 Prime. We’re going to go into hybrid mode here to make sure the engine’s ready to help out. Okay. Um I’m going to estimate somewhere around a five and a half second 0 to 60. Now going the opposite way here. It’s going to be probably a hair uphill. Um, so yeah, probably about 5 1/2 seconds. Okay, you guys comment down below what do you think the 0 to 60 is. Now, maybe you’ve seen it on other channels already, but I’m curious. And we’re also going to put it into the sport drive mode, which maybe I should have done when I was in fully electric, but this stretch here, uh, this one’s pretty straight. Okay, we’re going to torque brake. Oh man. Yeah, that’s a lot different. Oh my gosh. Wow. 5.8 seconds. 5. That was pretty flat uh surface. 5.8. I do have a 360 camera in here. Pretty cool. Uh it’s kind of got that 3D mode on it. Anyways, holy cow. Is it worth it to buy the plug-in hybrid? Well, that’s a lot of it’s going to depend on a lot of things. All right. Does it fit your budget? Again, I don’t know how what the premium is at the time of this recording of of the plug-in hybrid over the standard hybrid. But there are noticeable differences when you drive it. It feels a little bit heavier. It feels more solid, like a luxury car, and it is noticeably quieter. Like I have acoustic glass here. The standard Woodland did not have that. Um, the ride quality is better. That surprised me. Uh, noticeably better. It just handles the bumps a little bit better. Now, the vehicle is heavier in general because of the large battery pack. So, and the charging for the charging apparatus and things like that. So, there is noticeable weight added to the vehicle, but for that added weight, you get uh maybe not quite as good handling. I’m not talking about the GR Sport, that’s different. But on this model, if you know, the steering is pretty a little bit heavier than um maybe something like the standard Limited or the XLE, for example. All right, I like the heavier steering in these Woodland models. Um the plug-in hybrid, though, one of the things you’re going to notice when you drive, other than it’s quieter and smoother, okay, is that your your power is more instant. Okay. In the standard hybrid, when you put the pedal down, there’s a slight delay, but the delay is very acceptable. It feels like a traditional car. Grabbing, downshifting, and picking the perfect gear. That’s what the standard hybrid feels when you need the power. On the plug-in hybrid, foot down, and it just goes. It ain’t waiting around for that engine to do anything. The engine will eventually chips in about a second later and then it accelerates you even further, but you have potentially up to 290 pound- feet of torque going off anytime you put your your foot down. So, the responsiveness, the torque, and the power here is probably the biggest reason you get this over the standard hybrid. The standard hybrid’s so efficient, 40 m per gallon, that it would take a long time for you to make up the fuel savings compared to driving this in fully electric a lot of the time. All right. And it’s great. It’s great to have the fully electric range go up up to 52 miles on the SE. All right. Again, this model is probably around 50 something like that of fully electric. Let’s listen for this RV. It’s noticeably quieter with these doublepaneed windows. All right, so it really just is going to come down to one, can you charge at home? If you can’t charge at home, forget about getting this plug-in hybrid. It would make no sense. All right, yes, the added power and torque is great, but if you’re never plugging it in and you b using that fully electric range, there’s no point in getting this. All right. So, all right. That ex, you know, here’s the thing. This this plug-in hybrid, all of them, at least for now, are all made in Japan. All right. When I hear that, I think low volume. Yes, they expanded the trim levels, which you can get the plug-in hybrid, but until they can start making this plug-in hybrid in the United States or in Canada, because they make it in both places with batteries from the North Carolina battery plant, this is going to be a low volume vehicle. And yes, it’s smooth, quieter, it’s just a better it’s objectively better in every way compared to the standard hybrid. Okay. But is it going to be worth it to wait for it if you can’t get one at launch? Maybe, maybe not. The good news is if you buy a standard hybrid, they hold their value very well. So does a plug-in hybrid. Okay? So if you’re like, “Hey, I I’m going to have the standard hybrid for for a few years, and then you trade it in for one one of these down the road when they’re more readily available, great.” All right. But yeah, I just don’t want to get your guys’ hopes up for this vehicle being available at launch. Speaking of launch, the hybrid launch is in December. The plug-in hybrid is spring. All right, so there’s already delay there. So, if you need a new RAV 4, just get the standard one. It’s great. It’s amazing. It’s fantastic. But this feels like a I wouldn’t say completely different vehicle because the materials in here are not like Lexus quality but the the quietness, the ride quality and the power and then your electric range. So you get all these extra benefits for this model and it is really really well executed. Some people just love having a Toyota that’s built in Japan, and you’re going to have that here on the RAV 4 plug-in hybrid. All right, so with that being said, I got one more vehicle to drive, and that’s going to be the GR Sport, which is only plug-in hybrid. All right, and I’m going to throw this in the turn up here because, well, I haven’t had a lot of turns I can take at speed and throw it in the turn and give you guys my impressions on what this feels like. the brakes. You can tell it’s heavier when you get on the brakes. Actually, if it just powers out of a turn a lot better than the standard hybrid, but I’m I Wow, the hand the handling was just about as good as a standard woodland. That that surprised me there despite this being a lot heavier. Now, most of that weight is added really low in the floor of the vehicle. So, the weight distribution’s low in the plug-in hybrid. So, the handling’s pretty decent, but I felt it in the braking. The extra weight you feel in the braking. All right. So, the brakes aren’t quite as satisfactory as they are in the standard hybrid. That’s the only thing the h the standard hybrid really has an edge over this is just the brake feel and slowing it down feels a little bit more confidence inspiring. I don’t have a skid like a a test course to test brakes like how fast or how long it takes a car to slow down versus the other one. All right, but just just the the foot feel and being in it the hybrid seems to stop noticeably better than the plug-in hybrid. All right, but again wait for like motor week or car and driver to do those sort of tests if you care about elite braking performance. And here we are, 70. It’s a lot quieter in here at 70 than it is in the standard hybrids. Acoustic glass. I still have that wind noise, but the road noise is not there. And uh I’m just going to put it on cruise control and let the amazing new Toyota Safety Sense 4 take over. Let me know in the comments. Are you going to be waiting and saving your pennies for the hybrid, or should I say the plug-in hybrid, over the standard hybrid? Both are fantastic. It’s great to have options. Um, and this RAV 4 plug-in hybrid, you know, it’s just that that small improvement over the previous RAV 4 plug-in hybrid, which was already incredible. This is taking it that next step further. A little bit more power, a little bit more quietness, and 10% more range. About 10 more miles of range versus last generation. And that’s great. They’ve nailed it. Really, really enjoy the plug-in hybrid RAV 4 woodland here. Thank you guys for watching. Catch you in the next one.
#phev #plugin #woodland #awd #hybrid #rav4 #toyota
In this first drive, I test out Toyota’s all-new 2026 Rav4 in the new woodland trim. Is this the home-run redesign that the industry has been worried about? Here’s my impressions on this 6th gen Rav4.
2026 RAV4 Highlights
• All-New 6th Generation RAV4 Available in Three Different Designs Across Seven
Grades
• Choice of Hybrid or Plug-in Hybrid with Available Front- or Electronic On-Demand All-
Wheel Drive
• Debut of 6th Generation PHEV Powertrain with a 23% Increase in Manufacturer
Estimated All-Electric Driving Range Rating of up to 52 miles
• PHEV Output Boosts to 324 Net Combined System Horsepower while Gaining Fuel
Economy for up to a Manufacturer Estimated 41 MPG Combined Rating
• RAV4 Hybrid Models Move to 5th Generation System and Improve Fuel Economy with
up to a Manufacturer Estimated 44 MPG Combined Rating (FWD model)
• Hybrid Models also Add Power with 236 Net Combined System Horsepower on AWD
Models and 226 horsepower on FWD Models – an 11% Increase Over the Prior Gas FWD
Model
• First-Ever RAV4 GR SPORT, Developed in Partnership with Toyota’s GAZOO Racing
Company, whose Mission is Making Ever-Better Motorsport Bred Vehicles
• RAV4 GR SPORT has GR-tuned Suspension and Steering, Functional Aerodynamics,
Standard PHEV Powertrain with AWD, Sport Seating, and more
• RAV4 Woodland Grade is Available in HEV or PHEV with standard AWD, All-Terrain
Tires, Split Grille, Tow Package, All Weather Floor and Cargo Mats, and more
• New Technology Includes All New Driver’s Display, Toyota Safety Sense 4.0, new
generation of Toyota Audio Multimedia System, and Arene Software Developed Vehicle
Platform
• Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price* starting in the low $30,000’s (Hybrid FWD)
00:00 – PHEV Woodland Rav4 Intro
00:58 – Engine, Range, battery
02:10 – Charging
03:07 – Exterior Tour
04:24 – Cargo
05:07 – backseat
05:57 – frontseat and cockpit
09:41 – 0-60 in EV
10:34 – 0-60 in HEV
11:39 – Driving Impressions PHEV Rav4
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