A winning formula for Toyota’s world famous petrol-electric hardware.

Price: $39,990
Powertrain: 2.5-litre four-cylinder petrol hybrid, 131kW/221Nm (163kW total system output), continuously variable transmission, AWD, fuel economy 4.8L/100km, CO2 112g/km (Toyota NZ), 0-100kmh N/A.
Vital statistics: 4600mm long, 1685mm high, 2690mm wheelbase, 18-inch alloy wheels.
We like: Improved dynamics, refined powertrain, roominess.
We don't like: Austere GX trim, CVT, road noise.

TIME to give up on the Toyota that delivered pioneering technology to average suburban driveways all over the world?

Maybe. Not so much because hybrids are no longer the tip of the technology spear – yes, they’re old-hat, but there’s still a role – but more because the ground-breaking Prius is surely no longer crucial to Toyota and Lexus petrol-electric placement.

Those Corollas, Camrys and CH-Rs, RXs and UXs and so on are increasingly becoming the product that allow Japan’s No.1 to make ever more hybrid hay while the sun of environmental concern shines. 

Implanting a battery-assisted drive-set into the RAV4 creates the most socially relevant petrol-electric Toyota of the moment.

The only mystery is why Toyota waited so long. Sports utilities of this size have become consumer favourites and the RAV4 has been a giant since its inception in 1994, with more than 8.5 million units sold globally.

What sells the nickel hydride battery-included model line is that it improves efficiency while pretty much maintaining all the positives of the non-hybrid line – a sharp chassis, aggressively rugged new styling, improved specification and more comfortable, roomier cabin.

Toyota build quality is superb and the car’s tech lift, notably with the Toyota Safety Sense package (that now includes an emergency braking system that can spot pedestrians and cyclists day and night) is a winning asset.

That’s not to say this is a product exempt from criticism. Even though it’s another new-age Toyota to display premium touches within, you cannot help but notice unfortunate cost constraint. A front passenger seat fixed awkwardly high, a touch screen with fiddly menu functions and utterly outdated sat nav graphics and, in this entry GX, trim hues that – notwithstanding this is often a fleet grade – from the bargain bin; all could surely be improved without significant effort.

The driving delivers more positively, save that it asks acceptance of a constantly variable transmission. Toyota’s is better than some, thanks to a smart ‘launch gear’ - a physical first gear that "changes up" to the CVT after 40kmh – which helps minimise flaring at kick-off. Yet there’s still irritating high-rev thrash and, overall, it demands an easier-going approach that is at odds with the car’s overall character.

The powertrain itself is otherwise quite pleasant. As per usual convention, it’ll reverse and crawl forward under electric impetus alone, but anything more than a feather-light prod will generally incite the four-cylinder petrol engine to kick in.

A 2.5-litre is relatively large capacity unit for this class of car nowadays and the output from it in isolation is fairly impressive. Add in the impetus from the electric motors and the combined output is all the more of a turn-on. Performance is punchy and the torque flow is solid from low to medium revs. It’s only when you really start to push that it loses its cool; but as said, the CVT will crack first.

You might like to push the envelope, though, because the vehicle dynamics this time around are impressive. The platform is rigid and hanging off it is a well-sorted MacPherson-strut front and multilink rear suspension that’s compliant enough to cope with bumps and uneven surfaces yet firm enough to provide tidy cornering. The electromechanical power steering delivers well, too. Only the brakes raise a flag; they don’t lack for ability but the feel is wooden, as it goes with regenerative braking.

The all-wheel-drive comes from using a 40kW electric motor mounted directly to the rear axle. That’s a far cry from hardcore tradition, but even though RAV spells out to ‘recreational activity vehicle’, Toyota never intended it to be a junior Land Cruiser.

It can run all four wheels or alternately divert power to the rears alone, uses the brakes to mimic the effect of a limited slip differential and can even handle towing. Just 1500kg, mind, so don’t get carried away at the garden centre.

Is 6.1 litres per 100km economy from my week worth crowing about? Not if you have any faith in the maker-claimed optimal of 4.1L/100km being even remotely achievable outside of a laboratory. A colleague burned a touch more from a long, exclusively open road run, whereas mine included a fair mix of urban tootling and I’m confident it could have improved if more gently driven.

Of course, it’s fair to argue that, with hybrid, the RAV4 is merely catching up with the Toyota norm and might have made more impact had it matched the Mitsubishi Outlander and gone to a plug-in rechargeable set-up.

Good news is that this expectation might not be far from being fulfilled. Talk is that a RAV with the same hardware that goes into the Prius Prime PHEV will be revealed at a motor show before too long. That’ll conceivably give us a RAV with capability of travelling up to 50km on battery juice alone. Game set and match, Outlander?

As for a fully electric Toyota? Well, one of those is coming as well. But probably not in this format.