Ahh, the joys of driving a prototype vehicle. During the annual
Toyota Sustainable Mobility Seminar in San Diego, California this week, Toyota brought in a handful of all-electric RAV4 EVs for us to tool around in, but there were some caveats: The route was decidedly highway-free; when it rained one afternoon, we were told it would be better to wait to drive the cars; and one journalist had
a problem with his vehicle that made it sluggish. The biggest asterisk in the whole program, though, was that the RAV4 EVs we were testing are only a pale shadow of what the real RAV4 EVs will be like when Toyota releases them in the first quarter of 2012.
Why's that? Because the current fleet of new RAV4 EVs was an intentional rush job by Toyota's partner
Tesla Motors to get vehicles into auto shows and on the road. A completely separate batch is being built to really get this model ready for production, and it will operate differently than the ones we got to drive this week. Still, we learned a lot about what's coming by checking out what's here today.
Here's how fast the new RAV4 EV has evolved. The
Toyota/Tesla partnership was publicly announced in May of 2010, with the
RAV4 EV program becoming public in July. At the 2010
Los Angeles Auto Show, Toyota
showed off the new RAV4 EV for the first time and Tesla delivered 31 prototypes to Toyota in February of 2011. This month, these vehicles were officially launched as part of a demonstration fleet. In the automotive industry, this is pretty close to light speed.
Not that Toyota doesn't have a lot of practice with electric vehicles (heck, it was building the still-popular first-gen RAV4 EV a decade ago). In fact, the RAV4 EV was just one vehicle we learned about in California. Toyota's other announced electric vehicle plans include the following.
- The iQ EV, a 50-mile range, low-volume urban commuter vehicle scheduled to arrive in 2012 (some details here).
- The plug-in Prius, of which there are 163 in the U.S. demonstration fleet right now to gather real-world use and charging data (details here and here).
- The FCHV-adv, which is currently being developed and tested with a 100-vehicle demonstration fleet that started last year and runs through 2013. The H2 CUV is scheduled to arrive in 2015 "or sooner" (details here).
Okay, but we already knew about these other programs. Let's get to the RAV4 EV. First, some numbers.
- The RAV4 EV weighs 3,942 pounds, about 1,000 pounds of which are in the Tesla battery.
- The CUV can go from 0-60 in nine seconds.
- It has an official 100-mile-per-hour top speed (unofficially, test drivers have gotten it to over 103).
- The RAV4 EV has 73 cubic-feet of space, which is exactly the same as the standard RAV4 V6.
- Toyota is claiming a range that varies between 80 and 120 miles from the battery that has 37 kWh of useable energy. The engineers are guaranteeing that the RAV4 EV will beat the Nissan Leaf and its official EPA range of 73 miles. This is nice, but the RAV4 EV is bigger and heavier, an electron-guzzler or sorts, that gets just 2-3 miles per kWh (other EVs get around 4-5 miles), and we assume it will cost a lot more, too. Whatever the official range estimate ends up being, Toyota representatives told us that they will under promise and over deliver.
- The prototype has a Tesla charge port, but the production version will have the standard J1772 connector.
- The demonstration vehicles take ages to charge: 28 hours to fully charge over a standard 110 volt outlet (12 over 240V), but the production version, everyone promised us, will be "significantly improved."
What is the deal between the prototypes and the pre-production models? The production version is really a separate project, and the two RAV4 EV teams are working concurrently. The production team is getting driving data, ideas and information from the test fleet team. In the light-speed rush to get Toyota some all-electric RAV4s, Tesla converted just 35 units for Toyota: two for development, two for the auto show circuit and 31 for the demonstration fleet.
The team had carte blanche to choose the priorities for the EV version, but not enough time to completely refresh the vehicle for electric duty (as, for example,
Volvo did with the
C30 Electric and the redesigned safety features to protect the battery in case of a crash). So, a lot of the metal and parts come straight from a V6 RAV4, which is what all of these EVs started out life as, but there have been a few changes that were deemed feasible ways to enhance range. The electrified version has a new front fascia designed by CALTY in Newport Beach as well as "I'm an EV"-type badging and special
LED fog lights. On the inside, the powertrain was imported, and slightly adapted, from a
Tesla Roadster.
There are at least four easy ways you can tell that this Toyota vehicle has been through the Tesla shop: the aforementioned Tesla connector, Tesla's battery management system box under the hood, the way the car gives you a little "
Powered by Tesla" message when you start it up and the way the PRND buttons are arranged, which is similar to the way they are set up in the Roadster. Actually, five: the ability to drive (almost) with one foot.
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