[00:00] The 2026 RAV4 Plug-in GR Sport. So what do you need to know? Well in this video
[00:16] we'll be walking you through what makes it sporty, how Toyota's trying to venture into a new niche, and of course how this is different to live with than a regular RAV4, a vehicle we've covered to death at this point. So let's start with price.
[00:29] the GR Sport, not a full GR, is over $51,000 with destination. This is the most expensive RAV4 currently sold and for that you are getting some fairly significant changes versus a regular RAV4. So yes, the plug-in hybrid drive
[00:44] train is identical to other models. There's about five of a trim level to four of a trim level you can pick from and makes 324 combined horsepower. However, the GR Sport has unique front and rear fascia, has unique styling cues, different wheels, red
[00:57] painted brakes, though the brakes themselves are the identical size, and the chassis has been updated. This is all to give you some of the sporty feel that's been still lacking in the RAV4 for many, many years. And from the interior side of things, there are some
[01:10] unique GR tidbits like these seats, the steering wheel, red piping throughout, to try to make this feel slightly more special than it probably really is. Weirdly, though, from an options side of things. This, despite being the most expensive RAV4, lacks in some of the
[01:26] premium features that you can get in other vehicles. Like you can't option in the JBL audio system, you can't get cooled seats, you can't get a moonroof. These are things that are found in other RAV4s. For whatever reason, Product Line has decided not to do that with this vehicle. Ergonomically, the RAV4 is very very well
[01:42] designed from the storage side of things. We've talked about it before. There's tiered storage in the doors, the center console, the doors open relatively wide, but they don't open at 90 degrees in the back, which is a mess. When it comes to legroom and cargo space,
[01:54] you're behind the CR-V. There's both more legroom and about six cubic feet more cargo capacity in that vehicle. Now, the other thing I'm going to bring up is the technology, but something that Toyota has done fairly well, but the audio system in this car, because you can't option in the JBL,
[02:08] is truly, truly abysmal. The other thing that's unique about this car, which I've kind of touched on, is the seats. They're GR style. They look similar to my old GR Corolla seats, However, they're no worse aggressive than bolsters and as a con, they don't breathe that well.
[02:21] This sort of fake suede Alcantara seat back does not breathe. So if you live in a hotter climate, you're probably going to put the suede back. So I'm going to head to the shop and put this thing up on the lift. In the shop would be 2026 GR Sport RAV4.
[02:39] This is one of the plug-in hybrid variants. As we mentioned in the beginning of this video, well, yes, some of this is definitely a little but on the cynical marketing side, Toyota has tried to make meaningful changes to the RAV4 to make it a more sporting, more Budget Macan-esque of a driving experience.
[02:55] Let's start with what this vehicle is. It is a RAV4 plug-in. We haven't tested one of these vehicles yet, though we've done a lot of videos on the regular RAV4. If you want to learn everything there is to learn about this latest gen, watch those videos. We've done comparison tests and everything else.
[03:08] It's built on TMGA. It is Toyota's modular front-wheel drive platform. you've seen in basically every other one of their products outside of their trucks and their more premium vehicles. And it has a plug-in hybrid drive.
[03:21] For the latest Toyota hybrid technology, it has a 2.5 liter gas, four-cylinder, makes like 184, 185 horsepower, and then three electric motors, two in the front, one in the back. This has E-L wheel drive to give us a combined system output of over 320 horsepower.
[03:37] instrument testing, which is a real thing for this vehicle. Has it accelerating to 0 to 60 in 5.1 seconds and in a quarter in just under 14 or just at 14, depending on what tire option you have. They have made other changes to this car
[03:52] to make it a GR Sport. Does the drivetrain again, it's the same as everything else. Battery pack, 23 kilowatt hours, lithium ion. It's good for about 50 miles of EV range plus or minus given what tire you're running. It does not run a NACS
[04:07] charging port yet It runs a CCS so allegedly in the future they going to make changes so you can charge this on the Tesla network if you really want to Now suspension Strat front multi rear Being GR Sport they added chassis bracing in this car to the rear to make it a little bit more dynamic a little
[04:22] bit more rigid, a better platform. They've lowered the car by 0.6 of an inch. It has retuned steering, dampers, and spring rate. It's a little firmer than the stock car, but conversely, it does have less head tops for the rear occupants, so
[04:34] something to think about. And you have a wider track. The tire is done from 225 on a regular non-XSE RAV4 to this 235. And surprisingly, you can get a dedicated summer tire on the GR Sport.
[04:47] However, 99.9% of these vehicles will be leaving the factory with the Bridgestone all-season Taranto that this thing comes on. So that, Mark and I are going to take you for a quick drive.
[05:03] You're on your third failed vasectomy. You have an AI analyst job and three kids, and you never had a chance to get a cool car like this one. This is the quickest accelerating car to 60 in the Toyota lineup car, by the way, Mark.
[05:17] It sets my bones flying. 360 in like the 5 is quicker than a GR Corolla to 60. That's a quarter mile around 14 seconds. You know, we charged this up before this drive.
[05:30] We drove it flat with the plug-in hybrid part of the battery yesterday. and I think what's surprising about it is I thought it was going to have like the EV thrust on the line but it actually makes power more like a naturally aspirated engine with a high top end
[05:46] because as you get off the line it's quick but then you look at the speed and you're like wow this thing is moving once you get over like 40 miles an hour it just keeps pulling and pulling typically the hybrids that we drive from Toyota are just like fall flat on the ground
[06:00] It's kind of like, like CBT, you know, the typical, like, annoying hold the revs type experience. So in the regard of it being quick, it really is. It just doesn't feel that way.
[06:13] Like, it doesn't have that, like, wow factor of speed, but you really are going quick. Toyota's trying to bring in a hot, affordable, it's $70,000, it's not that affordable, CUV.
[06:25] Right. This is a classic car that more and more manufacturers are starting to play in. Obviously, like, the CX-50 has the turbocharged variant. The Tiguan has the turbocharged variant as well, or what they call the turbo, the higher horsepower.
[06:41] And I think this product, as much as it doesn't make sense, I know why they're trying. The speed bar is viewpoint. They're trying to take something that, by design, is very isolated and make it feel sportier.
[06:54] and I don't, maybe where we live, which is all the roads are straight, I don't understand this at all. Like the regular plug-in hybrid has the identical drivetrain, and the ECVT is just as loose, and the motor and the internal combustion engine and the electric motor
[07:14] take the same power, basically the same acceleration numbers, and then the actual handling part of this, all the instrumented stuff they can get by the setup part, This has like F4S levels of grip on the private seat.
[07:29] This is kind of like a sporty car. Which we're not on right now. No, we're on the L-season. Which is to be fair probably what most people are going to be running on this. Especially with summer tires on your outboard. Yeah. The stability control is super invasive.
[07:42] Yeah. And the actual inputs in this car, like to me, is a fun car. fun car, some of it is steel, some of it is a steering wheel, and the body feels connected front and back.
[07:54] That isn't this car, because the Rappler was never designed to be that car. It was designed to be something that's compliant, easy to live with, doesn't beat you up. So while I kind of get this thing from like a, it needs a little market niche, I don't
[08:07] understand why we do actually buy this thing. So there's just a way to fill it. because trust me, the cynical marketing, cynical person that I am about this type of thing, to throw a GR badge on, I know it's GR Sport,
[08:21] it's like the nerd version, kind of like what Ford did with the S team and watered it down in a bunch of SUVs. I don like it I don like the idea of it because it not really sporty it both sporty It sporty Yeah I mean it just literally is quick in a straight line but it has all the deficiencies of a typical Toyota product and it reminds me a lot more of what Hyundai
[08:40] does with their drivetrain calibration and stability control, where it's a pre-active. Like, you can't turn. The electric motor feels like there's always a step behind stabilizing the car. There's not this natural cohesion between the front and the rear axle when you're
[08:55] turning so it's not a good handling vehicle if you like to drive it's just fine the suspension calibration is really good honestly i think they found a good line between compliance
[09:07] drivability the things you want every day and just a little bit of stiffness and you don't you know when i say stiffness i say that very carefully because it's not a stiff car so i feel like ride quality and secondary ride motion is really good in here way less head-off than a regular
[09:21] Yeah, no, there is. That's the best part about it, but it doesn't mean that it actually corners well. It doesn't handle well, and it's not dynamically spun. So it's basically, what Toyota does with the RAV4 is they've mastered having something for everybody here.
[09:39] They have the low end, they have the high end, the more boatish luxury version, and they're trying to attempt to have that middle ground. I don't think this goes far enough as a GR product to deliver on the handling promise. it should be dynamically more engaging.
[09:53] Money is making you sacrifice. We've been talking about it in the interior space. What's weird about this is it's the most expensive RAV4, yet you can't get things located, at least as of 2026. JBL audio system. A moonroof.
[10:05] You can't get cooled seats. Like, if you're already spending $50,000. I agree. To me, when I got in this, and the first thing I did, or when I listened to the audio system, I didn't test it. It is abysmal. We're talking about a $50,000 price point.
[10:19] but you know some of these things like not having the cooled seats not having an actual good audio system or an average audio system that sucks you know the moonroof thing you know you and i argue that most enthusiasts don't care about it but the mass majority of somebody that's going to
[10:33] buy a rav4 wants that and again for 50 grand this isn't really a value product what it's sacrificing to give you this like cheese badge on here that doesn't really do much um i don't think it's i
[10:45] I just don't get it. I think they need to product plan this a little bit better around understanding it needs to do the core things that GR set out to do, handling, and it needs to give you the features back as a regular. Yeah, it needs to have all the lux features and do it.
[10:58] And you can charge even more for it. I think about what Ford did with the Explorer ST. Yeah. That is, all that is is it goes past the straight line. Right. You have the ST badge, and it does that very well just like this, but it still has all the lux features off of a regular sporting and massaging seat, cooled seat.
[11:14] all the stuff that you want in a high dollar Ford. So this should do the same for the Ram. Yeah, we talk about this quite a bit with, like, vehicles. And because Toyota can have a model for, like, 50 different trim levels
[11:29] because that's the brand that has the money to do it, this is a lost opportunity to have a very, like, focused product. And because it's trying to do too many things, unfortunately still, it's sacrificing the very thing that this is supposed to do,
[11:42] is like deliver some fun drive, like handling wise. I don't care about the speed. You know, you can only go 50, if you have your family in here, you're not going to be burning up to 100 miles an hour where it really starts to feel like something's happening.
[11:55] They need to do a better job blending the performance thing and some, you know, just what we talked about. The only other thing I'm going to talk about here that's interesting about it is when you deplete the battery, if you're not using it as a plug-in hybrid, it just feels like every other RAV4.
[12:07] Like literally, it's just like... It's a good reboot thing. It's fine. I like the fact that you have that option, but you're carrying the extra weight. The complexity of having a plug-in hybrid, so you're really going to want to use it as a plug-in hybrid.
[12:20] It takes about three hours to charge it because they capped the AC charging at home. It's like the BZ that we talked about. They upped it to 11 kilowatts. This is capped at like seven something. So you don't get the full speed.
[12:33] It still takes three hours to charge it. Granted, three hours is not a big deal, and it gets you about 52 miles of range. Now if you in pure EV mode you know this is where things are going to get a little different for people because your driver what tire you have affects it and of course what area you driving in the winter it going to affect it a lot um if you in the
[12:53] summer you're going to get better range if you're in the mountains it's going to be worse i don't know that the the price for the plug-in hybrid is going to be for everybody but having 50 miles range to your point even if you got 70 of that range when it was cold and like let's say you're
[13:10] in the 30s, you're probably going to get to work in halfway back without having to use fuel. I like that idea, but again, I don't think it makes it better. Like, I really don't think it makes it better other than the power.
[13:22] But again, it's another trim level that gives you that option. I think the handoff is the four-cylinder, and that's the thing that we always talk about with Toyota or Lexus products. The four-cylinders are not well-dampened out.
[13:34] Yeah. But, because of the P-HAV, you run an electric so much of the time when you have battery charge. It's a lot more refined than a regular RAV4. Yeah. And I appreciate, I think they are still one of the brands that does the gas to EV handoff the back.
[13:51] Yeah. It's very, very, some of the inputs, like sometimes Toyota doesn't do the best job with brake blending. Yeah. Between friction brake and regen. but past that I think for a regular human being this is such a refined vehicle
[14:05] compared to probably something they're coming out of. Given the price point that I'm trying to give them a break on it because I felt like the drivetrain handoff has been jerky for me. There's a lot of on and off like jerkiness as it's
[14:18] cycling between gasoline back to hybrid and EV mode you feel it more here than let's say the Honda CR-V hybrid that we're in. But it's not a plug-in. True. There is some quirks to this. There are some smoothness difficulties, especially when it's colder.
[14:32] You'll get it, like, perky, jerky, or surging. I've gotten surging. That's, like, where you feel kind of, like, a little bit of, like, bucking, g-load. Like, your head's going forward and back, depending on what it's doing. If you put this back into gas or auto when you, so, if you've been, like, you've had it, the handoff is...
[14:50] The handoff is smooth, but there's these steps, right? You're going from EV to when the car picks up, it needs gasoline power. So there's these steps in power. Sometimes those steps are not perfectly clear. Sure. I've found that more that I've driven it.
[15:03] All right, Mark. Good with that. Let's head on to the final thoughts. Final thoughts on the Toyota RAV4 plug-in hybrid, the GR Sport variant.
[15:15] I'm going to say this. There's only two reasons to buy this. You absolutely need a plug-in hybrid where you want to use its pure electric range. and you don't want a RAV4 that looks super generic. The GR Sport tarts it up. It's essentially an appearance package.
[15:28] They're rebranding the Sport RAV4 with a GR logo so people know what it is. But it's not an enthusiast car. This is not a fun vehicle. They're not adding enough here to make it feel like I have to have this as a sporty car.
[15:40] It's just basically the plug-in hybrid with a GR Sport badge and some different aesthetic choices. The cons for me really is I really was driven crazy by the seats. I don't think they are padded enough for long-distance drives.
[15:54] When you get on the highway, if you're really driving this on the highway, that transition between EV to hybrid was constantly jerky for me, especially when you're out in that 70-mile-an-hour range. You go in EV, there'd be no power, you'd push a little bit, and it'd just jerk you all the time.
[16:07] Those are the key things that killed this for me. And, of course, the audio system is absolutely abysmal, and they don't have a JVL option. So, really, I would just get a regular hybrid RAV4. And if you needed a plug-in hybrid, just get the regular plug-in hybrid, not the GR variant.
[16:22] I think you're getting less for your money here overall. But the things that the RAV4 brings to the table, it's going to last forever. It's going to hold its value. And even if you want the GR Sport, it's still going to hold its value,
[16:34] and it's going to be around in your family for a long time. So this may not be the trim level for me, but I'd be curious to see what your thoughts on it. Are they just pandering to the GR enthusiasts, trying to get them to buy this, or is this something that people actually want?
[16:48] Thanks for watching. I'll see you next video.