I went through my road test archives and the last time I bothered taking a Toyota RAV4 to Gerotek was 20 years ago. It was a 100kW, 2.2 litre diesel, non-turbo derivative that ran a six-speed manual gearbox. But this was back in the day when I would road test anything and everything to build a meaningful database of information.
The Toyota RAV4 GR-Sport draws on Toyota’s motorsport pedigree to deliver a sporty drive. Picture: Mark Jones First RAV4 to wear GR-Sport badge The Toyota RAV4 you see here not only features state-of-the-art hybrid electric technology, it also carries the GR-Sport name. I have become more selective in my old age, as new vehicles and model derivatives arrive in South Africa almost daily.
There is no way I can get to them all, but the Toyota RAV4 GR-Sport warrants a performance road test to back its on-paper credentials. Electricity adds power Under the hood you have a 137kW/221Nm, 2.5 litre naturally aspirated engine married to a small, self-charging, 1.1kWh lithium battery that drives a pair of electric motors. One is on the front axle with a rated 100kW/202Nm and one on the rear with 40kW/121Nm.
They are connected front to rear by e-Four electronic traction control technology. I am not going to get into Toyota Japanese accounting, because you will need a varsity degree to try and figure it out. But in a nutshell, what they do is they take these individual power and torque outputs of the engine and the electric motors and combine them into a number they like.
Angular door lines on the Toyota RAV4 GR-Sport sharpen the side profile. Picture: Mark Jones It’s fast enough This means that the Toyota RAV4 GR-Sport HEV you see here produces a claimed combined 176kW of power and 221Nm of torque. Staying with the numbers, the industry benchmark 0-100km/h sprint was done in just 8.15 seconds, while almost running into the electronic speed limiter of 180km/h in the half mile (800m) test.
The roll-on acceleration tests were also impressive. The electricity on tap fills the torque gaps that would be left by a naturally aspirated powered vehicle. This was probably the part that made the Toyota RAV4 GR-Sport HEV most fun to drive in the city and on the open road.
Summary from source