Toyota’s Rad 20-Year-Old RAV4 EV Is Surprisingly Usable Today

With the earliest modern-era EVs now a decade or two old, enthusiasts are finding out some of these trailblazers aren’t aging that well. David Tracy’s $2,000 Nissan Leaf will only go 20 miles or so, and that’s if you baby the accelerator.

You might think, then, that a Toyota RAV4 EV with a decade-older battery and way older tech would be even worse, but an example for sale on Cars & Bids says otherwise. This 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV is a full 22 years old, but it’s said to still drive up to 60 miles per charge – 50% of its original rating of 120 miles. Perhaps even more surprising, someone drove this innovative EV 74,900 miles, an impressive figure for such an early EV effort. Let’s take a look at this thing.

Lately, I’ve been looking to add a bargain basement EV to my fleet. I don’t want something common like a Nissan Leaf, but something a bit weirder like a Smart Fortwo ED or a Th!nk City EV. When these cars were new, they had modest range even for their day. A 2011 Nissan Leaf was said to go 73 miles on a charge while the Smart was rated to go 87 miles on a charge. The Th!nk City EV could hit about 100 miles in perfect conditions. Also remember that the other game in town included the Ford Focus Electric, which went 76 miles on a charge, and the Fiat 500e, which claimed 87 miles per charge. If you wanted to go the distance, you bought a Tesla.

Now, we’re over a decade past when those cars were first put on the market, which means they’ve become affordable to cheapskates like me. Unfortunately, looking at these cars more than a decade later is disappointing. I regularly find bricked Smarts, Leafs (Leaves?) with so little range they wouldn’t even reliably make it over the town line, and Th!nk City EVs that either had only half their remaining range or had been bricked because someone dared to turn on the heat before turning on the car. That’s right, leaving the heater on between key cycles can brick a Th!nk City EV. If you’re lucky, the heater itself will break, and good luck finding parts for it.

So, I haven’t pulled the trigger on any of these vehicles, though I may buy a Th!nk City because come on, it can’t be any worse than a Volkswagen, right? As it turns out, there is an old EV out there that seems to be holding up ok. This 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV on Cars & Bids has retained about half of its range after 22 years and 74,900 miles of use. None of the above EVs could claim such a thing and it’s even more impressive when you remember it came from the 1990s efforts to electrify America.

The Original RAV4 Is A Great Platform

Toyota says it launched an EV Development Division within its Toyota Development Center 3 in 1992. The company had electric vehicle departments before and claims to have been researching EVs since the late 1960s, Now, Toyota had a reason to consolidate its teams all under one roof.

In 1990, the California Air Resources Board adopted the Low Emission Vehicle regulation. At the time, California believed that 10 percent of new vehicle sales in the state had to be zero-emission vehicles to meet new standards. Eventually, CARB announced a requirement that by 1998, two percent of the vehicles sold by each manufacturer distributing vehicles in the state had to emit zero emissions. The requirement then stated that five percent of California’s vehicles had to be ZEVs by 2001 and 10 percent by 2003.

This sent automakers scrambling. They suddenly had to produce vehicles that met this mandate, and fast, if they wanted to continue selling vehicles in California. Toyota sort of went a bit nuts with the ZEV idea. In 1993, it produced a Crown Majesta EV for Tokyo’s government, 42 TownAce EVs for government agencies in Japan, and the marque started hydrogen vehicle and hybrid vehicle projects.

In the mid-1990s, Toyota began announcing that it had another EV in the works, and this one was coming to America. The firm was taking its first-generation RAV4 and making it electric. Here’s why the first-gen RAV4 was a good start for this project, from my retrospective:

As Toyota UK Magazine writes, Chief Engineer Masakatsu Nonaka had a challenge on his hands. He had to convince Toyota brass that there was a market for a type of vehicle that wasn’t known to exist yet. Sure, there were large 4x4s out there, but as the magazine writes, many at Toyota found the idea of a small 4×4 to be hard to understand. At one point, Toyota axed the project, only for its sales channels in Japan and Europe to convince Toyota that the RAV-FOUR was a project worth developing.

When the RAV4 reached production in 1994, it lost a lot of what made the concept so captivating. Yet, it still kept rather cool features. The first RAV4s utilized a unibody chassis containing a mix of Japanese-market Carina and U.S.-market Corolla origin. The engine and steering rack came from the Japanese Camry while the rest of the drivetrain varied based on transmission choice. A RAV4 with an automatic transmission got its remaining drivetrain from the Corolla All-Trac while manual models got theirs from the Celica All-Trac. Reportedly, 40 percent of the original RAV4 came from other vehicles in the Toyota lineup.

Electrifying A Great Crossover

The RAV4 was an instant hit. Toyota expected only mild interest and sales of just 4,500 vehicles. In the first month of sales alone, 8,000 people lined up to buy a RAV4. Toyota’s baby crossover was popular and a perfect platform for electrification.

As Australia’s Drive writes, development on the RAV4 EV began in 1995. Toyota fitted its EV with a Panasonic-designed nickel-metal hydride battery pack. Toyota made both three-door and five-door variants of the RAV4 EV, and the five-door’s battery pack was fitted entirely down low under the floor, like a modern EV. Charging this battery was done through a standard outlet at home. There was also a Magne Charge inductive paddle, a technology developed by GM’s Delco Electronics and was used in GM’s 1990s EVs.

That battery system powered a permanent magnet electric motor that drove the front wheels through a reduction gear. The NiMH batteries were sort of a big deal back then. Even the revolutionary GM EV1 was still playing with lead-acid batteries during this time. Another notable advancement for the day was Toyota’s use of a heat pump to cool and heat the vehicle’s interior. The RAV4 EV even had an early form of preconditioning as you were able to heat or cool the interior while the vehicle was charging.

Other than those technological leaps, the electric RAV4s were regular cars. They still had power steering and brake booster, only now they were fed from electrical sources. Toyota’s testing was also rigorous and it included over 310,000 miles of testing around Japan and the 1995 Scandinavian Electric Car Rally, where it took a win. Toyota says RAV4 EVs also took class wins twice in the Monte Carlo Rally for Electric Vehicles.

Production versions of the RAV4 EV began hitting U.S. fleets in 1997 and by 2001, regular Americans in California were able to pick up 2002 model year RAV4 EVs for themselves, provided they paid $42,000 ($81,417 today) before incentives. These cars feature 24 12-volt, 95Ah NiMH batteries adding up to 27.4 kWh capacity, and are rated for around 120 miles of driving depending on conditions. The motors in the five-door units made 67 HP, 140 lb-ft of torque, and got the car up to a top speed of 78 mph. Three-door RAV4 EVs made 60 HP but advertised the same top speed. Toyota noted that the battery could be charged in 6.5 hours from a 200V source or in about 6 hours from the Magne Charge paddle. The vehicle also features a regeneration system to capture some energy back.

By 1999, Toyota noted that it built 1,000 units, 290 examples for Japan and 710 vehicles for the United States. When production ceased in 2003, Toyota made a total of 1,900 RAV4 EVs, 1,484 of which went to California.

The RAV4 EV 22 Years Later

That brings us to the 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV for sale today. It’s said that just 328 people opted to pay for public-spec RAV4 EV, making the public version an even rarer version of a super rare EV.

It’s not in perfect shape, but it’s remarkable how well the RAV4 EV has survived. The seller states that the vehicle’s charger indicates a full charge, but the vehicle’s state of charge gauge indicates 80 percent full. It’s not known what’s going on there, but the seller reports that the car still drives 50 to 60 miles on a charge after 22 years and 74,900 miles. That’s about half of the original advertised range on the vehicle’s original batteries, which is pretty impressive, all things considered.

The listing notes common issues for a two-decade-old car with some bumps and scrapes, some interior wear, and even a little corrosion. But overall, the car looks pretty good. The vehicle also got recent maintenance in the form of a new 12V battery, a new resonant charge capacitor, and new tires.

There are some downsides, and the big one is that the seller isn’t able to charge in public. Instead, they had to add an adapter to the vehicle’s 240-volt charger to convert the 50-amp plug to a 30-amp plug so that the RAV4 EV can charge from the garage outlet that powers their welding equipment.

The other major downside is that if something breaks, you’re stuck doing DIY. Some EV enthusiasts in the Cars & Bids comments recommended a conversion from Trajectory Electric Customs, which replaces the factory batteries with LFP packs and replaces the weird charging connector with a common J1772. Apparently, Trajectory has already converted a couple of RAV4s and those cars now get 150 miles per charge and can charge in public.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this RAV4 EV is that its mileage isn’t even half of what’s been claimed out there. In 2020, a RAV4 EV was found with 184,000 miles.

A first-gen RAV4 EV for sale with 184,000 miles! It's amazing such a limited-production car with proprietary parts was able to be kept going this long. A few little modifications and parts substitutions, but this mostly original car is still driving. pic.twitter.com/8hxLv2XGav

— Jacob Cirulis (@BuddyrooAv) December 21, 2020

The poster indicated that the vehicle had some DIY fixes and substitute parts, unsurprising given the lack of replacement parts, but that the vehicle was still mostly original.

I’m not sure David’s Nissan Leaf would have that kind of longevity without its battery fully conking out. It sounds like this RAV4 EV in theory has plenty of life left, despite coming from an era when manufacturers were just figuring this modern EV thing out.

If you want this 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV, it’s currently one of the cheaper options over at Cars & Bids. The auction has two days to go with bids sitting at $3,600. This RAV4 EV may be 22 years old, but somehow, it remains a useful car, provided you have a short commute. Even if you don’t have a short commute, this RAV4 EV is a piece of history and I’m glad there are people out there keeping these alive.

(Images: Cars & Bids Seller, unless otherwise noted.)