My Thoughts after owning the Rav4EV for a year

[Damchi]

A year ago today I bought the Rav4 EV. It was a cool feeling knowing I was one of the very first people to buy the 2012 Rav4 EV, that is until a few months later and they started selling them with a discount. Being one of the first has other downsides, two days into owning the car I got a EV system error warning. Taking the car to Toyota then was not fun. They knew so little of the car that is would have to stay for days if not longer so they could talk to Tesla. The EV warning turned out to be that the EVSE system at my wives work did not work with the car (the SPX), a few days later cause of this error Toyota put out a warning about incompatible EVSE systems. A year ago if you talked to Toyota corporate they had you do a lot of the testing and leg work. I do know that a lot of that has not changed, It is just easier. Besides the few warnings and unknown system noises my Rav4 EV has been working and running great. I have had to replace the windscreen (not Cheap $1,300), turns out there is no after market windscreens for this car (its all bout that humidity sensor). I also had to replace one tire due to side wall damage. I have not bothered with doing upgrades or mods to this car. To me this car is just a commuter are and not my hot rod (even though it is very fast off the line ). Currently I have just over 16,000 miles on the car, I do about 60 to 70 miles a day. With the 100 mile range I have never had to worry or not gone places I would normally go here in Los Angeles. I do mostly freeway driving, most of which is not in heavy traffic. It is very common for me to be pushing 70+ mph on the car (I do not hypermile at all I drive the car like its a car) and I still get an easy 100 mile range. I would say that after a year and 16,000 miles I have not lost any range on the car. If you asked me today if I would buy this car again I would say yes. The only downside about this car and after a year you feel it more is that Toyota does not care about this car. They will fix it and maintain it but they just want to sell there numbers and move on.

 

[cwerdna]

Thanks!

Wow. You were a very early adopter. When I test drove the Rav4 EV last year at http://web.archive.org/web/20120916110904/http://www.altcarexpo.com/exhibitor_vehicles.html, it'd only been on sale for maybe a week or less. Looking at http://web.archive.org/web/20121019225716/http://altcarexpo.com/index.html, the show that year was Sept 28-29th.

 

[Tadol]

What a great post! Thank you!

I can only say that I've had my Rav EV for a week now, and it's great to hear from the people who've been at the cutting edge - blazing trails, finding the pot holes, and helping fill them in so our road is smoother. Ultimately, these are just cars, and they have to meet our needs, and its good to hear that they have been doing that successfully for some. I know its mostly the problems you hear about - I'm guilty of that - but its nice to hear the other side. What'll be really nice is to read your post in 5 or 6 years, when you cross the 100,000 mile mark.

Today I stopped at the Marin County Civic Center and looked at all the electric vehicles on display for national Plug-In day and had a chance to talk to a few folk about charging systems and accessories, and let my wife drool over a couple of Teslas. We then drove further north to my folks house up at Dillon Beach. Left Berkeley on a full extended charge, drove a grand total of about 70 miles, and the car still shows about 40 miles available, despite my cruising at almost 70 for some time. This was our first long drive - and a little concerning when the display starts flashing messages about being out of range for our return home - and now we are plugged into the 110 plug in the garage with some 28+ hours to go to be recharged.

I hope we're as happy as you in a year, but at this point, I certainly expect to be -

 

[Dsinned]

I consider myself an "early adopter" as well. I purchase my 2012 RAV4 EV last November and was told I was "the first" at my local Toyota dealership.

I paid very close to full MSRP and didn't even get 0% financing. That was a VERY bitter pill to swallow just a few months later when I could of bought the same car for almost $10,000 less at 0%! Nevertheless, the $10k in total for the federal tax credit and CA rebate made up for that initial financial fiasco.

I also started out with an SPX charger known as the Power Express. I already installed this for my Volt, only to find it completely useless for charging my RAV4 EV. Since then a fellow member here bought that charger from me, for his Volt, and subsequently was successful in getting the manufacturer to upgrage the firmware so it now works fine with both cars. That was just this past July, so not hardly a "timely" fix.

In addition to the SPX issue, like so many others, I also had additional issues with even Toyota's "recommended" EVSE charger made by Leviton. Unfortunately, the issue dealing with scheduled charging has NEVER been addressed by either Toyota or Tesla even after a so-called RAV4 EV firmware upgrade that did not fix the problem.

*** As an aside, just this week, I downloaded "RavCharger", developed by a fellow member here to work as an enhancement to Entunes. Now all our scheduled charging problems have been solved! THANK YOU!!!

In spite of these dissatisfiers, my overall general impression of the RAV4 EV has still been favorable. The car has a very impressive power train and battery range. Being the first SUV to be "electric", I have found it to be a very practical family car for around town driving, running errands, carry two dogs in the spacious rear cargo area, and even quite respectable on the freeway.

It is really a terrible shame that Toyota has been so incredibly inept at supporting this car. It is a very fine 2nd generation "EV" in the history of the RAV4, mostly thanks to Tesla. A really good car comes along only so often and it is so sad that Toyota does not realize how much potential this car really has to offer.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I'm still 35 days away from one year of ownership, and most are familiar with the multitude of issues that I have had, and some that are ongoing.

Having said that, I really like the car overall. All the "good" issues remain, but going forward, I would want:

1) all the ongoing issues repaired
2) additional onboard chargers (80 - 120 amps total)
3) CHAdeMO
4) add a heat pump integrated with both the battery and cabin heaters
4) some plan for battery replacement that doesn't include giving Toyota $36,000

 

[snoltor]

Sounds great, is that open for download for everybody?

As an aside, just this week, I downloaded "RavCharger"

 

[Dsinned]

snoltor, yes, RavCharge has been available since last weekend, for a 14 day free trial, with several improvements already to make it a very fine phone web app (better than Toyota's Entunes to be sure) for scheduled charging purposes. Kudos go entirely to Fooljoe, a fellow member here, for all his hard work to make RavCharge a reality!

To download it, go here: http://www.ravcharge.com

 

[snoltor]

Thanks.

Steve

snoltor, yes, RavCharge has been available since last weekend, for a 14 day free trial, with several improvements already to make it a very fine phone web app (better than Toyota's Entunes to be sure) for scheduled charging purposes. Kudos go entirely to Fooljoe, a fellow member here, for all his hard work to make RavCharge a reality!

To download it, go here: http://www.ravcharge.com