NEW Toyota RAV4: First look walk around review
Good day, I’m Paul. Toyota has rolled out a new RAV 4. It is coming to Australia next year. RAV 4 is one of the most popular cars in Australia and certainly the most popular hybrid SUV. And there’s a reason for that cuz it is fuel efficient and it just does what it says on the box. So, today I’m going to walk you through what the new RAV 4 is like. I’ve also driven it, but that’s going to be part of a separate video that will be released a little later on. So, make sure you subscribed when it does go live. I’m going to put a link in the description below and a card up on the screen as well. So, the new RAV 4, it’s not quite all new, it carries over the platform from the current generation car. And while the engines are kind of carryover as well, they’ve actually been d-tuned to fit emissions regulations. And it means that this is probably going to feel a little less punchy compared to the current car, which I think is a bit disappointing. New generations of cars should excel when it comes to performance and efficiency and all that kind of stuff. Uh, we’re yet to see whether this will be the case. It does have some pretty uh exciting new interior features though with the new infotainment system that deboos here in the RAV but will eventually trickle down to other models. So let’s have a look at the design before we jump inside the cabin. So on the design front, it really is just a bit of an evolution of the existing design. So you’ve got LED headlights up the top there with fog lights down the bottom. You can see there that they’ve really progressed through to making everything LED. Toyota has been one of those lagards that kind of just keeps with incandescent globes for indicators and other random bits around the car, but from what I can tell at the moment, this is full LED, which is good news. A big grill down the bottom there with a Toyota logo there as well. They’ve updated a lot of the safety equipment on the car. Around the side here, you’ve got some wheel arch cladding. Kind of signifies that this will be off-road friendly. Despite the fact that you’re not really going to be doing a great deal of off-road, it’ll be available both as a front-wheel drive and an all-wheel drive with your wheel drive variant having a motor for the rear axle. It’s only a small motor, though, so it doesn’t really give you much extra performance. It’s just there for that added traction when you need it. This is also going to be coming in a plug-in hybrid. That won’t be until later in 2026 for the Australian market along with the GR Sport spec. We actually drove the plug-in hybrid RAV 4 for the current generation in the States recently. I was blown away with the performance and also how easy it was to charge and the efficiency. If you do want to check out that video, there’s a link in the description below, but I keen to see what the plug-in hybrid version of this uh new generation car is like. Um, outside of that, the rest of this looks fairly familiar. Again, because it is a shared platform, a lot of the other hard points are going to look a little familiar. Come around to the back with me, though. Now, around the back here, we’ve got full LED tail lights, which is a pleasant change. You’ve got RAV 4 lettering there with the new hybrid badge down the bottom here. Have a look at this. Uh, one of the advantages Toyota has is that they don’t really have a big reduction in cargo capacity when you option a hybrid. And even though this new generation car is going to be fully hybrid, you can see under floor here, for example, you’ve got a space saver spare tire, it’s not like it’s entirely taken up by a battery which sits under that rear passenger seat. It’s a very usable space with uh with plenty of room there, too. Right. So, this is the interior of the new RAV. kind of continues on from its current form, which is, you know, it’s premium but not soft touch finishes everywhere. They’ve gone for a bit of a rugged look here. This is a pre-production car, so some of these uh surfaces may not be the the complete ones that you’ll see in the production car, but to me, this is a really nice place to be seated. Toyota’s gone all in now on infotainment, and it’s about time because Toyota’s infotainment systems have been pretty dated, and while they do bring some updates occasionally, this is a huge step forward. So the screen is almost 13 in in size, but it uses brand new version of Toyota’s infotainment system that has a really strong focus on connected services and cloud. So it means that when you are trying to communicate with the car, you can now do additional functions like opening and closing windows. Uh you’re able to start the car to to warm it up. You’re able to track the car in theory. And you’ve also got a brand new layout here on the infotainment system with Google Maps that you’re able to integrate with. So really is a big step forward. Um, we’re going to have a proper play with this when the car does launch in Australia. But based on what we’ve heard and seen through the product demonstrations, this does look like the big step forward that Toyota needed because a lot of consumers these days are going towards Chinese cars. They’re going towards tech heavy models that have all of this stuff built in and it is traditionally where Toyota has lost customers to those where, you know, big service network and that sort of Toyota reliability isn’t as important. Now, the big step forward in terms of safety equipment. It is unfortunately one of those annoying ones where you’ve got lane support systems, driver monitoring. So, we haven’t really spent a great deal of time driving this on public roads. It’s just been here at this proving ground. So, we will have to see how well this has been tuned. If it’s anything like the Chinese market cars, that stuff is just so annoying you end up switching it all off to begin with. So, hopefully Toyota has gone to the effort here to tune that and make sure that it works. And of the driver, we’ve also got a digital display here too with key information. Again, it’s a step forward over what they have with the current generation car, but outside of that, it is quite a nice place to be seated. Second row, still plenty of room there for passengers. It is an adult-friendly zone. It’s not just going to be a place where you want to go dump the kids. Like I mentioned before as well, they store the battery beneath the seat as well, so you do get a bit of freedom for movement there. I did notice yesterday we were in an upper spec version of this car that had I think it was like 45 watt uh USBC charging. This particular spec here has 15 watt. Could be just a pre-production thing, but even stuff like wireless phone charger has no cooling for your phone. Uh I do hope that production versions of this car not only have cooling for your phone because it it does get hot when you have wireless CarPlay running, but they also pay a bit of consideration to having adequate charging speeds here for USBC. Uh 15 watts really isn’t going to break the mold there in terms of charging your phone nice and quick. So, this has been your first look at the new Toyota RAV 4. It will be in Australia 2026 uh in the first half. plug-in hybrid coming later in 2026. We are excited to have a proper drive of it then and see exactly what it’s like. So, let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Do you like the look of it? Are you going to be upgrading your current RAV 4? And what do you think they’re going to do with pricing? And just as a reminder, we will have a separate video of what this is like to drive on the channel shortly. So, keep an eye out for that. But until next time, take it
The new Toyota RAV4 has landed and while it carries over the same platform, a great deal has changed on the technology and driving front. Have they done enough? Paul Maric finds out.
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 00:29
Interior: 03:02
Outro: 05:46
2024 Toyota RAV4 Prime review (inc. 0-100): We need this SUV in Australia
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