Toyota RAV4

The same wall as the HiLux

Australia's fourth best-selling vehicle, 31,209 sold to the end of September, and the price page behaves exactly as the HiLux page does: every grade reads "DRIVEAWAY FROM $" with the figure blank until you nominate a specific dealership.

No recommended retail price, for any grade, at any point. Toyota's [P1] footnote again says the figure is built on the maximum dealer delivery charge without saying what that is.

We will not repeat the whole argument here. It is on the HiLux page, and the short version is that the step is not pricing, it is a gate: an identical car came back at the same figure from two different dealerships in the same city.

Where we looked, so you can check the places we did not. The model page, the range page, the prices page, the downloadable specification sheet, Toyota's own site search for "list price" and "recommended retail price", and the Toyota Fleet plans and pricing section. None carries a recommended retail price or a list price for any grade. The specification sheet contains no price of any kind.

The same RAV4, five states

Identical configuration: GX 2WD, 2.5L Hybrid, Auto CVT, standard paint.

That is worth noting because the HiLux does the opposite. On the ute, both ends of the table swap as the grade climbs, because Victoria charges a dual cab a flat commercial rate and Western Australia has a cliff at $50,000 that the cheapest grade sits under. The RAV4 is a passenger car and a hybrid, so neither of those applies, and the ranking is stable all the way up.

Queensland is cheapest because of the hybrid, not the postcode

Queensland charges stamp duty by engine type, and it puts a hybrid in the same band as an electric car: $2.00 per $100, against $3.00 for an ordinary four-cylinder and $3.50 for a six.

On a car of this price that is worth roughly $470 against an equivalent petrol model, before a drop of fuel has been bought. It is the only state where choosing the hybrid reduces the tax as well as the running cost, and almost nobody mentions it.

At the other end, Western Australia charges 6.5% of the whole value once a car passes $50,000, which is why Perth is dearest at every grade and why the gap widens as you go up the range.

What we cannot tell you

What share of each figure is the government's. Toyota publishes one total and no breakdown, so this measure is an inference from how the number moves across a border rather than the answer.

It can be done. Tesla itemises the same calculation to the plate fee, and on a Model Y the government's share runs from 3.5% in Brisbane to 7.8% in Perth. Ford and Toyota both choose not to show it.

The tax line, and the word that misleads

The whole RAV4 range is clear of the Luxury Car Tax. The dearest drive-away we recorded was $73,934, and a drive-away figure includes duty, registration and CTP, none of which count toward the LCT value.

The honest caveat is the same one: you cannot verify that yourself, because toyota.com.au/rav4/prices gives no list price.

But the useful part of this section is not about the RAV4's own bill. It is about what this car teaches a buyer, because it is the best-selling hybrid in the country and most Australians learn what "hybrid" means from it.

It does not mean fuel-efficient. Not for tax.

The Luxury Car Tax has two thresholds: $91,661 for a fuel-efficient vehicle and $80,809 for everything else. The test for fuel-efficient is 3.5 litres per 100km, and it was tightened from 7.0 on 1 July 2025.

On the government's own Green Vehicle Guide, the 2026 RAV4 Hybrid 2WD is rated at 4.5 L/100km. It fails the test. A hybrid gets the ordinary threshold, exactly like a petrol car.

The RAV4 Plug-in Hybrid is rated 0.7 L/100km and passes it easily. So inside one model range, the hybrid gets the low threshold and the plug-in gets the high one, and the two thresholds are $10,852 apart.

None of that costs you anything on a RAV4, because no variant goes near either line. It costs real money the moment you take the belief somewhere dearer.

One classification that sounds useful and is not

The RAV4 Hybrid emits 102 g/km of CO2, which makes it a green passenger car in Victoria, a class that pays $8.40 per $200 at every price.

On this car that is worth nothing. An ordinary passenger car also pays $8.40 per $200 below $80,809, and the green class only starts helping above that figure, where a normal car steps up to $10.40. No RAV4 gets there.

We mention it because it is the sort of fact that gets repeated as a saving. It is a real classification and it is dormant here.

The tie

The base warranty is the good part and it is unconditional: five years, unlimited kilometres.

Everything after that has a condition attached.

Seven years covers the engine and driveline only, and only if the logbook servicing is done with Toyota. Ford's seven years covers the whole vehicle on the same kind of condition, so the two headline numbers are not the same product.

The traction battery is the one to read closely. Toyota covers it for up to ten years, which sounds like the best number on this page. It is built as the standard five years, extended one year at a time, and each extension requires an annual traction battery health check to Toyota's specification.

So the ten years is really ten annual appointments. Miss one and the extension stops.

And it excludes capacity degradation. Toyota's own wording puts "traction battery capacity degradation issues" outside the cover. The warranty is against the battery failing, not against it getting weaker.

That is the sharpest comparison available between the two kinds of electrified car sold here. Tesla covers its battery for eight years with a guaranteed minimum 70% capacity retention and no servicing condition at all. Toyota covers its battery for up to ten years, with an annual inspection, and does not guarantee capacity at all.

Neither is wrong. They are different promises, and the longer number is not automatically the better one.

What it can actually tow

Toyota publishes the towing figure and not one of the three numbers you need in order to use it.

The RAV4 tows 800kg braked in 2WD and 1,500kg braked in AWD, and 750kg unbraked. Those are the only weight-related figures on the spec sheet.

Then there is this, in Toyota's own disclaimer on the same document:

"Before towing, customers should consider the vehicle's limitations, including towing capacity specifications, gross vehicle mass (GVM), gross combined mass (GCM), kerb weight specified by the manufacturer."

The spec sheet specifies none of them. Its own section headed WEIGHTS AND CAPACITIES holds four rows and every one is a capacity: braked towing, unbraked towing, seats and fuel tank. GVM, GCM and payload appear on the document only inside disclaimers, never as a row with a number against it. The word tare does not appear on it at all. Kerb appears four times, twice as "kerb to kerb" in the turning circle and twice in that same disclaimer, never with a number against it.

Toyota does publish a Basic Towing Guide, and we went and read it before writing this. It defines every one of those terms carefully, and it is clear that Gross Vehicle Mass includes "the kerb weight of the vehicle plus driver, passengers, luggage, towbar, bullbar, any other accessories and the tow ball download". Then it says: "for the specific details for your vehicle, refer to your vehicle's owner's manual or your Toyota dealer."

So the guide explains the sum and points at a document you do not have until after you buy. It happens again on the same spec sheet, where Toyota recommends a load distribution hitch "when towing loads greater than half of the vehicle's GVM", a figure it also does not print.

Chery, for contrast, publishes a Tare Mass and a Gross Vehicle Mass for each of its two variants separately, on a car costing half as much.

What 1,500kg means in practice

A box trailer with a couple of bikes is a few hundred kilograms. A small camper trailer is roughly 750kg to 1,200kg. A modest caravan starts near 1,400kg and a family van is commonly 2,000kg to 2,500kg.

So the AWD tows a camper trailer and a small boat, and does not tow a caravan. The 2WD, at 800kg, tows a box trailer. If towing is part of why you are looking at a mid-size SUV, that single figure decides between the two drivetrains before anything else does.

Who publishes what

This is worth stating once, because it is not about the RAV4 alone. Four of the numbers needed to work out what a car can really tow are below, across the five best-selling vehicles in the country. No means the number is not on that maker's specification sheet, model pages or towing guide, not that it exists nowhere.

Only the two utes publish all four, and they are where buyers are most likely to ask. The RAV4 is the only one of the five that publishes a towing capacity and not one single weight, which is the combination that lets a buyer plan a tow they cannot actually make.

There is a fifth number, and the two biggest sellers name it without giving it. The tow ball takes around ten per cent of a loaded trailer and it comes out of payload, so the most the bar will take decides the sum. Toyota's HiLux sheet counts "towball download weight" in payload and prints no maximum anywhere; its Basic Towing Guide says 9 to 11 per cent and sends you to the owner's manual and the tow bar ID plate. Ford's towing guide calls it Trailer Nose Weight, "typically about 10%", and footnotes "Refer to your Owner's Manual for specific Trailer Nose Weight information". Isuzu, Mitsubishi and Mazda each print 350kg on the sheet itself. Read the tow bar's own ID plate before you load anything.

Source: Toyota RAV4 specification sheet, May 2026 issue, read 25 October 2026. Ford Australia Towing and Carrying guide, Toyota Australia Basic Towing Guide and the Toyota HiLux specification sheet, June 2026 version, all read 25 October 2026. We have not read Ford's own specification sheet for a ball figure, so the Ford statement here is about its towing guide and not about that sheet. The Model Y rows are from Tesla's Australian specification page and owner's manual, and the Tiggo 4 rows from Chery's two Model Year 2026 specification sheets and the Tiggo 4 model page, all read 25 October 2026.

Against the Tiggo 4

These two are not cross-shopped. One costs roughly twice the other and they are a size apart. They sit side by side here because they are the two SUVs reviewed on this site, and because the gap in what each maker publishes is wider than the gap in price.

Not published means not on the documents named in Sources below, not that the figure exists nowhere.

The RAV4's dimensions are a range, not a measurement. Those are the figures from Toyota's own spec table, and they span six grades without saying which grade is which. Forty five millimetres of length and twenty five of width sit between the narrowest and the widest, and a buyer measuring a garage is not told where their car falls in it.

Toyota publishes a wheel, Chery publishes a tyre. The RAV4 table gives 17, 18 and 20 inch alloys by grade and no tyre specification anywhere. You cannot price a replacement set from a rim diameter, and on a 20 inch wheel that is the single number most likely to surprise the second owner. Chery prints 215/60 R17 and 215/55 R18, which a tyre retailer will quote on today.

705L and 470L are not the same measurement. Chery names the standard and the method: VDA, measured to the roof. Toyota's figure is "up to 705L" of cargo space, and the word VDA does not appear anywhere on the RAV4 model page. A capacity to the roof and a capacity to the parcel shelf are different numbers for the same boot, so these two cannot be subtracted.

Three restraints across is answerable on one of them. Chery publishes two ISOFIX positions and three top tether anchors, so the middle seat takes a tethered restraint and not an ISOFIX one. Toyota publishes ISOFIX on the outer rear seats and no top tether count at all, which leaves the question that decides a three child family unanswered on the spec sheet.

Neither publishes a width with the mirrors out, which is the width that meets a garage door and a 2.4 metre parking bay. Both quote the body. That is normal across the industry and it is still the figure nobody can use.

Sources: Toyota RAV4 specification table, version MAY 2026, PDF created 12 May 2026, and the RAV4 model page, read 25 October 2026. Chery Tiggo 4 Specification Sheet, Model Year 2026, read 25 October 2026.

Running cost

Servicing is the easy part and the RAV4 does well. $260 per service, every 12 months or 15,000km, with the first five capped for five years or 75,000km. That is $1,300 over five years, all of it covered.

Set that beside its own showroom: a diesel HiLux is serviced every six months and costs about $3,050 over the same period, because it needs ten visits and the cap stops after six. A Ranger is $1,995. The RAV4 is the cheapest of the three to service by a clear margin.

Fuel. The Green Vehicle Guide puts the annual fuel cost at $1,266, calculated at 14,000km a year using average retail fuel prices from the Australian Petroleum Statistics. Over five years that is about $6,330.

Total, about $7,630 over five years.

One figure worth knowing if you are weighing the plug-in. The Guide puts the PHEV's annual fuel cost at $1,124, which is only $142 a year less than the hybrid once the electricity is counted. The plug-in costs thousands more to buy. On running cost alone it does not pay that back, and the case for it has to be made on the 154km of electric range rather than on fuel savings.

One caveat on all of these numbers. The Guide's figures are laboratory results on the NEDC cycle, which is the older and more optimistic of the two test regimes. They are the right basis for comparing cars against each other, which is what we use them for, and they are not a promise about your own driving.

The wait

Toyota publishes no delivery estimate on the RAV4 pages, as with the HiLux. Ask which grades are in stock and which are factory orders.