2026 Toyota RAV4: More Hybrid, More Style, More Awesome
[Music] What is new in the most popular compact SUV on the road, the Toyota RAV 4? So much is new. I can’t wait to tell you what Toyota has in store for you if you are shopping the 2026 Toyota RAV 4. For 2026, the Toyota RAV 4 has a new look. It is all hybrid. There is either a hybrid, standard hybrid, or a plug-in electric hybrid. That is where all the fun is in the 2026 Toyota Rav 4. It has a new look inside and it actually has a whole new trim lineup as well that will make it much easier to shop. Be sure to follow along on our social channels. Of course, subscribe to us here on YouTube. There is a link to our newsletter down below and we put videos here in the corner because we know you’re going to like them. For 2026, Toyota has simplified the trim. So there is core meaning the basics from the entry level model to the limited which is what we’re driving. There is rugged which is the woodland edition and then there is sporty and that is the new GR RAV 4. Within each of those whether it’s the core, the rugged or the sport, you get a choice of powertrains. You can either go with the classic hybrid, something that Toyota has been known for for decades now, or you can go with the plug-in electric hybrid. And if you’re going for rugged or sporty, that is definitely the way to go. The hybrid puts out 236 horsepower, but the plug-in electric hybrid delivers 324 horsepower. That is 90 horsepower more, and that makes all the difference. We just spent the day with not only the Core Limited Edition, which is pretty luxury filled. We also spent time in the Woodland, and we spent time in the GR. We’re going to take a test drive. We’re going to do a little off-roading. I’m going to drive. Natalie’s going to drive. We’re going to tell you what you want to know, what you need to know about this compact SUV and what we think. So, let’s take a little walk around of the 2026 Toyota RAV 4 and let me show you what is new. So, there’s a couple things that they did that are very cool. First of all, the Toyota badge very demure. Now, you’ll see it smaller in here. It’s gloss black. It is not super flashy. What you do see that’s a little flashy is this new sort of honeycomb grill. There’s little bits of chrome here. You see these little strips here? That’s actually chrome and they created this nice honeycomb that has has a really beautiful shape. Behind that is where there’s air intake. That’s something we’re used to seeing on the grill just being all air intake. Now they’ve made it bodycoled and then the air intake is behind it. There is our front camera. We have a really nice surround view camera system in here. And this is something that is really nice to have in the Woodland edition if you need to see the ground around you. There’s a lower air intake. And then we have all new LED headlights. So each model, whether it’s core, rugged, or sport, has its own front face. And their lights differ just a little bit. But what’s nice here is there is a a vertical light here. And their LED headlights here and an LED highbeam headlight here. There’s also this uh lower spoiler here. Then we have cladding, which is really nice. We have very nice size wheels. On the Woodland Edition, you’ll get all-terrain tires. These are allseason tires. This lower cladding is designed to protect the underbody and give it a little bit of a design right there. And then we have these rear tail lights. Come check out these rear tail lights. So the tail lights are now uh extended all the way to sort of this outer third of the liftgate on either side. And notice it has almost this piano key feel to it. It’s very almost a zebra stripe of of tail lights here. And on the other side, this is also notable for this very demure, very petite Toyota badge right there. No longer is the Toyota badge screaming in your face. Just this tiny little thing. And then we do have the RAV 4 name right here. This is the XSSE edition. So we’re not in the actual top of the line, but this is a plug-in hybrid. I’ll show you that. And so it’s got most of the features that we like, but not everything. Uh, and then this is the plug-in hybrid all-wheel drive. So, you’ll see here is the PV badge that lets us know there’s a plug for 50 mi of electric driving and all-wheel drive, meaning it has terrain and snow mode, and it can go anywhere where you need four-wheel traction. Because this is a plug-in electric hybrid, it has this. This is your charge port. Now, this is a standard uh CCS, which is this part, and a J1772, which is this part. And this is the level two. This is a level three. So, you can plug this into a level three uh say a Tesla style charger. They’ll give you could get an adapter. Make sure it’s a Toyota adapter because you don’t want to void your warranty. And you can plug this in. This is really ideal for plugging at home and giving you that 50 miles a day so you don’t have to get gas during your weekly errands. You really only need to get gas when you’re say on a road trip or driving more than 50 or 100 miles and the electric charge isn’t going to get it. But we do not have the Tesla style charger yet. That’s probably something we’ll see from Toyota in the future, but for right now, it is the old school conventional J1772-CS charger or just the old school one. We are driving the XSSE edition, which is sort of the middle upper trim. It doesn’t have everything, but it does have this hands-free automatic liftgate. Now, Toyota is a pragmatic company. They don’t like to take a lot of risk. So instead of giving you a lift gate that just opens when you approach with your key, they do insist that you still have to kick under the bumper. But when you kick under the bumper, if your hands are full, you do get the liftgate opening automatically. We did have to turn that on on the uh multimedia touchcreen. And then back here, we have some nice features. There is a cargo cover here if you’d like to hide things from prying eyes. There is a nice carpeted floor here. And then there is a spare tire. This is an SUV. It is a plug-in electric hybrid, so you’re carrying a little bit of extra weight around. But if you have a car that has all-wheel drive, you want a spare tire because the assumption is you’re going to go places where all-wheel drive is needed, and that often can ruin a tire. Always have a spare if you have all-wheel drive. We have a nice amount of cargo space here, and then I’m going to put the seats down and show you what that looks like. So, the seats don’t fold completely flat, but almost flat. And it’s a nice contiguous space. There’s even a nice little uh little connector here. So, if you need to slide something into the cargo area, you can do that in the 2026 Toyota RAV 4. Inside the Toyota RAV 4 and let me turn down the air conditioning and I’ll show you. Here is the fan control. And then here are the temperature settings. So, actually, I do want to put it on one. Whoops. I do want to put it on one. There we go. Want a little fan running because it’s very hot today. But I also have my climate settings here. And then here I have my seat settings. And I can turn my seat to heating or cooled. I really like that there are this is a fixed bar of buttons here and then a fixed bar of controls here. And that’s nice because whatever’s going on on the screen, you always have your buttons and that matters a lot, especially when you get in the car and it’s 100° outside and you really want to turn that air conditioning on. But let’s talk about this new interior design in the Toyota RAV 4 because it is really good. So, it starts with this new steering wheel, and ours has this black center down here. Other models have a little color accent there to show you what model you’re in. We are in the XSSE Core Edition. So, really, this one is built for comfort on the road, running errands, driving other people around. It does have all-wheel drive, so that’s great for rough weather and slight hills and things like that. It is not the off-road one. We will talk about that one as well. We have our uh drive assist features on this side. Our entertainment features on this side. We have a 12.3 in driver display here. It’s a nice little screen. We also have a 13in multimedia touch screen here. And this gives us the opportunity to scroll through these different functions. You can customize what you have on the screen or you have, as we’ve had for a long time, for probably the last three or four years in Toyota vehicles, we have a toolbar here. I’m going to show you a couple of things here on the multimedia system that you need to know if this is your next car. These are standard features and they’re great to have, but if you buy the car and you get in the car and you don’t have these features, you do have them. They’re just here underneath the functions and the touchcreen. So, the first thing I’m going to show you is we’re going to go to our settings, our gear wheel icon over there, and I’m going to go to vehicle. And this is where I can set our power back door. So, that’s the lift gate essentially. And I can turn that off or on. And then I can make it hands-free. What all you have to do is with the key in your pocket or your purse, wave your foot underneath the center of the bumper and it will open or close the door, which is pretty amazing. You can also set the opening height. So, if you say uh would like to set it to maybe three so your fourth grader can easily reach the button after he grabs his backpack out of the back and doesn’t ask you to lean over here and push a button, which you can do, then you could set that. Also, it won’t uh bump up against your garage door when you put it in the garage. So, you can actually set that and that’s very nice. It even allows you to set that height manually. So, that’s one thing that I want to show you. The other thing I want to show you is over here underneath uh general general and voice assistant. And this is one of the things that I love about Toyota and have loved since 2021 when Toyota was the very first brand to introduce Hey, you know who as voice activated assistance in the Toyota Tundra and it was really the beginning of a great thing. So many of their car brands have added it since then. Toyota was the first to add it to all of their lineup and they’ve added it to every redesigned car since then. And believe we’ve had it in the RAV 4 before, but now we also have it in the new 2026 RAV 4. And here’s how it works. You can turn this off and say, “Hey, Toyota.” All day long and nothing happens. Turn it on and say, “Hey, Toyota.” And there it is. You can see that light bar lit up and it is ready to help you. And now you can say, “Cancel,” and it goes away. Or you can just tap the screen and it goes away. But here’s what I love about the Toyota system. It’s actually optimized for don’t wake the baby mode. Hey Toyota. Hey, Toyota. So, you can actually whisper and get the voice activation without saying it really loud. And that’s because there are these microphones here in the ceiling and the system is listening. You can also say if you don’t want it to activate, but you want to talk about it, you can just call it Yoda and it will not activate because it doesn’t know that you just said its name. A nice little trick that I learned from Natalie. So Natalie, what’s the first thing that you do when you get into a new car? Always connect your phone. So we’ll go on to the multimedia. You’ll select phone. This is where you’ll see the Bluetooth icon. It’ll tell you if you’re connected or not. So you’ll press there and then add a device. All right. So now we have the pairing request on your phone. And we have it on the screen. Once we see that yes, it matches, you hit pair, allow for contacts and favorites to sync. That way you have everything right at your fingertips the way that you like it. then connect to CarPlay. On the car, it’s going to ask you to to confirm. And then we’re in. Yay. Now we’re ready to drive. Another thing that is really great about the RAV 4 is it has Apple CarPlay here. And Apple CarPlay shows up in the driver display right here in front of you as you’re driving. The 2026 Toyota RAV 4 has a completely new design on the center console. So, let me walk you through what we have. I really like what they did here. So, our drive modes are here. Our EV modes are right here, which is important to know. I’ll show you that. We have trail and snow mode over here because this is all-wheel drive. And then we have normal. If you just want to pop it right back in normal really quickly, the normal button is right there. We have two high wattage USBC ports here. This is our camera view. So, you can see here is our camera view. And it actually gives you a clear view. So you could see all that is around this camera, all around the car where we are right here uh next to this beautiful lake, Sawarro Lake here in Arizona. And then you can see a top- down view right here. Uh there are customization options. There are more customization options in the limited, the higher trim limited and in the woodland edition. So you get even more options for your uh surround view camera. Then we also have um descent control here. So they call it descent assist. So if you’re say you’re um driving down a really steep dirt road, say to a boat launch, and you’d like a little extra assistance and braking from the engine, it’s going to give you that using descent control. And then we have our traction control. Over here is our parking brake and our auto hold. My very favorite brake hold. Once I push that and I tap the brake at a stop sign or a traffic light, the car won’t move until I tap the accelerator. I love that detail. You might have noticed these two shelves here. This is a dual wireless charge pad. So Natalie and I can both charge our phones wirelessly at the same time and it’s worked pretty nicely today. Although I will say I’ve also used this 45 watt charger to charge my phone and it charged really nice and fast. If you needed to put something else, say a third phone or you want to throw your keys or some sunscreen or something there, you have another cubby there. There is a customizable um cup holder here. So, I can move the this little I this little thing here if I want to give myself room for a big cup there or more cup or two cups there or just take it out if I’ve got something else I want to put there. And then it has this and this is one of my favorite features. This is your customizable armrest. So, I can pull this out and I can turn it upside down and then I’ve got a nice little space there where say uh I want to throw my phone there and it might it’s not going to fall off when I go around a corner. I can also open it from my side or I can open it from the passenger side. And if I don’t want this rough and rugged uh piece here, then I can just take it out and turn it over and put the armrest back. I also love that I can pull this out and wash it. So, if I want to take it in the house and give it a nice scrubbing and not have to sit here and try to wash it with some, you know, wipes in the car, I can absolutely take it in the house and and wash it in the kitchen, which is a really nice feature. Over here on the left side of the driver’s seat, you’ll see here is the uh liftgate release. There is light for the driver display. Here is the gas door. The electric power door just pops open. And then here is our parking brake. There are air vents here and then on the other side. And there’s also this nice shelf right here. That’s a great place to stow things. I think the thing I like the most about this little shelf is you don’t really see it till you’re sitting right in front of it. And then you notice, hey, look, there’s a shelf where I can put some things. In our edition, we have this really beautiful suede upholstery. It is micro suede. It’s leatherrett. Toyota calls it soft text. It covers a lot of the surfaces inside this car. This is ours is charcoal gray with this really beautiful blue piping. And we’ll see the charcoal gray here on the door. And then here’s a detail that I really love. And that is this large spot here. That’s another perfect place to stow a phone. So if you just want to put your phone next to you here in the door panel, you can do that. Or if you want to leave something else in there, you can. And the door handle to release the door is right here. How is the RAV 4 Limited different from other trims like the XSSE that we’ve been driving all day? Well, this is not a plugin, so it does have EV mode, but it doesn’t have all the toggles for different EV modes. It has park assist, so you can tap this and the Toyota Rev 4 will find a parking space and park for you. It still has that view camera, and we still have downhill descent control because this is all-wheel drive. It does have this toggle style gear selector, so you can just push it for reverse, pull it back for drive, and push this button for park. And this is also where we find our parking brake and our auto hold for brake hold. Our cup holders are here. And we also have the dual uh wireless charge pads here. You’ll see there is a digital rear view mirror. So this gives you that camera view or reflective view. And then it has this a one-touch panoramic sunroof. So, you just tap that button. The sunscreen slides back and you have a dual pane panoramic sunroof over the interior of the Toyota RAV 4. In the rear seat, we love the Toyota RAV 4 for comfort and space. Even though this is a compact SUV, there’s plenty of leg room. So, this seat is set for me and I’m 5’8. And look at the leg room that I have. Not only do I have room for my knees, but I have lots of headroom as well. The limited edition has a panoramic sunroof, which I much prefer to the moon roof, which is what we have here. But either way, there still is a lot of light. Let’s talk about what else you get in here. So, there are air vents here. If you’re going to have passengers in the back seat, you need air vents. There are two 15 watts uh USB ports. So, not as fast as the ones up front, but still pretty good. And they tell you, the standard actually is about 10 watts. So, these are faster than the standard, which is uh pretty nice. And they’re lit. So, in the dark, I don’t know if you can you can see it, but uh you’re not going to be able to see it cuz we’re not in the dark, but in the dark, these will light up uh with a light surround around the USB port, so you can see exactly where it is. You’ll also find that there are magic disappearing cup holders here in this armrest in the center seat. And we have two full seats of child car seat latches. So, there’s one here and one uh behind the passenger seat. And how much space do we have for a rear-facing child passenger car seat? This is the magic test. 30 inches behind this seat. And I’m 5 foot eight. So, a driver who’s taller than about 510 is probably going to be challenged to put a rearfacing car seat behind this seat. Now, you could put it over on the passenger side and it will fit fine as long as the passenger doesn’t push back into that rear-facing child passenger car seat. Can you fit two? Yes, you can fit two. Can you fit three? It’s going to be a challenge. This middle seat is a little a little tight and it is 10 in between this seat belt receptacle and this one. So 10 in from there to here. You really need about 12 in or so to be able to fit an additional car seat here in the middle. Um if you’re going to put car seats on either side. So that is another consideration for families thinking about the 2026 Toyota RAV 4. I do like how much leg room I have here. And I also like that it’s not completely a flat floor here. There is a transmission tunnel even though this is a plug-in electric hybrid, but we do have enough space here on this flat floor. You can put a tote bag or something else here and it’s not going to fall over while you’re driving. Now, we are out on the highway in the Toyota RAV 4 for 2026. We are in the plug-in hybrid version. 324 horsepower, so a lot more horsepower. Something that you probably don’t really need for average driving, but if you’ve got people and gear in the car, you’ll definitely feel the difference. And if you’re wondering why one has so much more power than the other, it’s really just a function of that additional battery and motor. It also has the byproduct of horsepower. So Natalie and I have both driven the car today. Natalie, what do you think about being behind the wheel of the RAV 4? I love the RAV 4 because I feel like it has that power on delivery when I put my foot down on the gas pedal and it just goes and I love that I can accelerate around if I need to out of harm’s way if I, you know, switching lanes. Um, it’s just very comfortable, too. Very seamless. It doesn’t feel like you have to put a lot of effort in to make your car go a little bit faster. And it’s a good runaround car. I’m going to say like we went to a Starbucks. We had a lot of fun in the RAV 4 today. And it’s just a comfortable runaround car. Like your handbag’s right here. I can reach everything right behind me. I like I really like the uh automatic lift gate. You have to swipe your foot under the bumper. But it’s nice. Just makes getting in and out really easy. And I think the thing that I like the most is that Toyota has standardized a lot of these features. A lot of the things that are available on that are on this car. And we’re in the XSSE, so it’s not the top of the line. And it has a lot of really great features. And I appreciate that because back in the day those are things you had to pay extra for and now they just come in the car. What’s your favorite feature in this car, Natalie? My favorite feature I like the the dual chi charging the wireless charging pads and also the 45 watt USBC cuz that way if I wanted to charge both of our phones and then maybe if I’m like hm I want to take my tablet out, do some writing on the go or play on my Nintendo Switch can plug right in and I’m good to go. And then in the back seat, if I my son was on my drive, I could go ahead and give him a cable he can charge too and no problem. So I can see how this could work for so many different types of people on the go. And yeah, just enjoy it, you know. And I like also that you can see all of the views from every angle even though this doesn’t have the panoramic camera. Yeah. Like at least I can still look around and, you know, unstructed enjoy all the views here in Phoenix. I really like that, too. I also like that in the parent camera they made the the car sort of transparent. So really all you see are all the camera views with sort of an outline of the car in the middle there. And so you really you don’t have the car the actual car blocking your view of what is around the car, which is really good. And that’s something that we’ve started to see in much more expensive cars. Um things like fullsize SUVs where you really need that extra visibility. I like that Toyota has added that. There is a reason that everyone loves the Toyota RAV 4. It’s known for going the distance. 200,000, 250,000, even 300,000 miles. It is now all hybrid. You get your choice. Hybrid hybrid or plug-in electric hybrid. If you would like to drive 50 miles on a charge in the plug-in electric hybrid, and that’s what they’re saying it does, you might never ever have to get gas. Yeah, if you’re not really into plugging it in or that doesn’t work for your life, hybrid will give you a solid 36 MPG, closer to 50 MPG in the plug-in electric hybrid. So, you really do have a nice choice. You also have great space in the interior. This really beautiful new front cabin with lots of great features, lots of clever features, and every trim offers little luxury to a lot of luxury depending on what it is that meets your needs. 2026 represents the sixth generation of the Toyota RAV 4. It also represents the best one that Toyota’s ever built. [Music]
The all-new 2026 Toyota RAV4 allows you to pick your power, hybrid or plug-in hybrid with 50 miles of range, then pick your style: Elegant, adventurous or sporty. We just drove all three new editions—Core, Rugged and Sport—as well as the hybrid and PHEV and this is what you need to know.
Read our full story here: https://agirlsguidetocars.com/2026-toyota-rav4-redesigned-3-editions-hybrid
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Chapters:
00:00:04 – Introduction to the all-new 2026 Toyota RAV4
00:00:47 – 3 Trims: Core, Rugged, and Sport
00:01:49 – New exterior updates upfront on the grille, headlights, and more
00:04:11 – Upfront: Charge port is located for easy level 2 or 3 charging
00:05:03 – Cargo Space and Hands-free Liftgate
00:06:22 – Front interior: new touchscreen, driver display, customized settings and more
00:09:31 – The new Voice Assistant system is more sensitive
00:10:53 – How to pair your phone when you get into the new RAV4
00:11:43 – New center console, modes, charging, and camera views
00:12:40 – Descent assist control, dual wireless charge pads in the RAV4 Limited, and arm rest
00:14:58 – Upfront controls, storage, and interior seat materials
00:16:46 – Second row: legroom, connectivity, vents, and car seat space
00:19:04 – Driving experience in the plug-in hybrid RAV4
00:21:53 – Final thoughts: could the new RAV4 fit your new car needs?
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