I Ran the 5-Year Math on Every RAV4. The Winner Surprised Me.

0:00 This is a true cost of ownership analysis comparing three 2026 RAV4 power trains. We've got the hybrid, the plug-in hybrid, and the fully electric. Now, I know the fully electric version is not technically a RAV4. It's called the bZ, but dimensionally, it is essentially a fastback RAV4. And I'm going to throw in one more vehicle at the end, sort of a curveball surprise. Now, if you haven't watched episode 1, here's [snorts] how this works. I use five line items for every vehicle in this series. One, the on-road purchase price after all taxes and rebates. Two, fuel or energy [music] including home charger installed for any plug-in vehicle. Three, insurance for each of

0:47 them over five years. Four, maintenance and tires, again, five years, 100,000 km. And five, the net depreciation, what you're actually going to lose when you sell. At the end, we're going to add them up, and that will be your five-year true cost of ownership. Our parameters are Ontario, Canada, 20,000 km per year, five years of ownership, homeowner with overnight charging, and gas at a dollar 55 a liter, which is Ontario's five-year rolling average. Now, those are my parameters, but this format works for any country or any car you might be cross-shopping. Because I built a free calculator, it's in the description. Go ahead and download it, open it, plug in your own electricity rate, your own gas

1:33 price, your actual mileage, and the math updates instantly. Because your numbers will be different from mine based on where you live. So, enjoy. Now, let's meet the vehicles. They are all all-wheel drive models. Trim selected for the closest equipment match across the lineup. The RAV4 Hybrid XLE all-wheel drive, 236 horsepower, built at Toyota's plant in Cambridge, Ontario. And we've got the RAV4 plug-in hybrid, which is the SE all-wheel drive version, 324 horsepower combined, also built in Canada, same plant. And finally, the 2026 Toyota bZ4XLE all-wheel drive, 338 horsepower, and I believe this one ships from Japan. Let's start with line item number one, the purchase price.

2:21 41 3 for the HEV, 48 7 for the FEV, and 53 3 for the BEV. That's a $12,000 spread from bottom to top, and that's before we do anything to those numbers. But MSRP is not what you pay in Ontario. Once you add the dealer fees, delivery, air conditioning charge, OMVIC fees, and 13% HST, the hybrid lands at just over 50,000, the FEV lands at 56, and the bZ4XLE lands over 63,000 out the door. But then the incentives hit. The FEV qualifies for the federal EVAP, electric vehicle affordability program, at the plug-in hybrid tier, which is $2,500 off at the point of sale. The bZ4XLE qualifies for the full

3:06 $5,000 EVAP, and right now, Toyota is also stacking a $5,000 manufacturer incentive on top of that. So that's $10,000 in total. So total after everything and incentives, we're looking at 50K for the hybrid, 56 for the plug-in hybrid, and 53 for the fully electric. I need to flag something about the Toyota incentive. It's $5,000 of manufacturer cash, which is discretionary. Toyota can pull this at any time, whereas the EVAP, the rebate is federally committed through the end of 2026. This is what is available at the time of filming, so these are the numbers I'm working with. And hit that like button if you're getting value so far. Now, fuel and energy.

3:51 The hybrid burns 5.7 L per 100 km. Now, at a $1.55 a liter over 100,000 km, that's $8,835 in fuel over 5 years. And right now, the price of gas is actually closer to $2 per liter, but we're going to stick with the 5-year average of $1.55. The bZ uses 17.3 kWh per 100 km. The National Resources Canada guide also gives the gasoline equivalent rating of 1.9 L per 100 km. So, if you want to compare them directly, you're looking at 5.7 versus 1.9. Now, we're looking at 80% charged at home on Ontario's ultra-low overnight rate, which is about 4 cents a kilowatt-hour, and 20% on public DC fast charging, which is approximately 55

4:37 cents per kilowatt-hour, depending on where you go, of course. So, the 5-year energy for the bZ is actually 2,443. The PHEV runs on a split, and in my base case, I'm using 75% of kilometers on electricity and 25% on gas. The PHEV has 80 km of EV range, and a full charge covers, I guess, most [music] drivers' daily round trips with some margin. So, 3/4 electric is a reasonable base case for a homeowner who charges every night. Therefore, the 5-year fuel and energy total for the PHEV is just over four grand. Now, for any plug-in vehicle like the PHEV or the battery electric vehicle, I'm also including a $1,750 fee for the level two home charger

5:23 install. For this example, we're going to assume you don't need any additional work like a panel upgrade or anything like that, so we're going to stick with 1750. It may vary depending on what charger you get and what electrician you hire to install it. The hybrid gets zero. It doesn't plug in, and you can leave an asterisk on the PHEV because you may not want a home charger. I'm including it in this example. So, with the charger folded in, the bZ4X wins on energy and charging combined. Insurance is where this gets interesting. I pulled confirmed CAA quotes from lowestrates.ca for all three vehicles. Same Ontario driver profile, same coverage, and here's what came back. The plug-in hybrid is the most expensive to insure

6:09 of the three, not the bZ4X. I wasn't expecting that. The plug-in hybrid costs $259 more per year than the regular hybrid and 96 more than the full electric. Why? Well, likely because the plug-in hybrid carries a high-voltage battery system and a full gas drivetrain. It's the most mechanically complex of the three vehicles to repair, would be my guess. But, if you have thoughts on this, I'd love for you to leave a comment down below. Maintenance follows the pattern you'd expect, but the numbers are worth seeing. The hybrid has more oil changes and full drivetrain service intervals. The plug-in hybrid's gas engine runs less frequently and fewer oil changes, but it still has an engine. The bZ4X has no oil changes, no

6:54 spark plugs, no transmission fluid, does have brake fluid every 3 years, cabin air filter, tire rotations, and one set of replacement tires over the 5-year window. Of course, this might vary a little bit here and there, especially if we extend the comparison to 6 or 7 years because you might already know that EV tires tend to wear out quicker than gas, but on the gas side, you'd be adding more oil changes and brakes, et cetera, so it might even out and there might be additional costs here and there. Anyhow, the bZ4X wins maintenance and the FEV is in the middle. Depreciation is the biggest line item in this analysis. Here's how I calculated it. I take the original MSRP, not the on-road price and not the price after rebates, and multiply it by the expected residual percentage at 5 years. For the hybrid, Toyota hybrids are among the strongest

7:41 holding vehicles in Canada. I'm using 70% of the 41 MSRP, which leaves us with uh just under 29,000. That's the estimated 5-year resale value. Now, for the plug-in hybrid, plug-in demand is growing, and the PHEV holds strong in the used market. So, we're using 68%. We're left [music] with 33,150 at year five. And here's a 2021 plug-in hybrid Prime for sale with about 100,000 km, which is going for $37,000. They hold their value pretty well. Now, the bZ is where I want to be careful. The bZ has been refreshed for the 2026 model year, and it would be unfair to compare it to the bZ4X because the bZ4X was truly a bad expensive vehicle with

8:28 bad range and terrible charging speed. It didn't sell well, and therefore depreciated extremely heavily. The 2026 bZ offers great value and range in its segment, and therefore I looked at actual 5-year depreciation on three comparable EVs like the Tesla Model Y, the Ioniq 5, and the Equinox EV, and I think about 45% is reasonable. So, I'm using 45% for the bZ, and that gives us an estimated 5-year resale of 24,000. So, the verdict. After 5 years, 100,000 km, every cost included, the winner is the RAV4 plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, winning by $507.

9:13 Now, $507 over 5 years, that is the PHEV's financial advantage over the hybrid in the base case. Now, before I folded in the charger, that number was actually 2,257. That $1,750 charger ate most of it. So, if you're planning on just using your 120-V outlet at home, then the savings are even more for the plug-in hybrid. Anyway, this is not a financial slam dunk for the plug-in hybrid. It's a near tie with the hybrid, and the choice between hybrid or plug-in hybrid is a buyer profile decision, not a clear winner loser. The BZ lands $3,621 above the hybrid with the full incentive stack active. And the customer incentive timing risk I flagged earlier, just make

10:00 sure you check their website because it could disappear at any time. And like and subscribe if you're getting value so far. So, here's a few scenarios where the hybrid wins. The FEV beats the hybrid in the base case, but there are three specific profiles where the hybrid wins clearly. And And if any of these apply to you, then the numbers flip. Scenario number one, maybe you don't own a home or you live in a condo or something like that. The plug-in hybrids can charge on public DC fast chargers, and I want to be clear about that, but here's the problem. At 55 cents a kilowatt-hour, the math flips a little bit. Charging publicly costs more per kilometer than running the hybrid on gas. You're paying FEV purchase price, FEV insurance, and public charging rates that start to eliminate the fuel advantage. So, the five-year gap, the hybrid wins roughly by three to five

10:47 thousand, depending on how much public charging you use. The FEV only makes financial sense [music] when you can charge at home. Scenario two, maybe you don't hold the vehicle for quite five years. At a three-year hold, the hybrid wins by a larger margin. The FEV's fuel savings haven't had enough time to compound, and the charger [music] cost is fresh, and you've held the vehicle through the highest depreciation years for both. So, a short-term hold, the math favors the hybrid. Scenario three, maybe you have a low annual mileage. The FEV's fuel advantage is driven by how many kilometers you drive on pure electric range. So, at just 10,000 [music] kilometers per year, half of what we used for our calculations, the fuel savings narrow enough that the higher purchase price and insurance can't quite

11:33 be recovered. And at 10,000 K a year, the hybrid wins by roughly 2,600 over the 5 years. The common thread across all three, the FEV's financial case depends on you actually using the plug, driving enough kilometers to recoup the cost difference, and holding the vehicle long enough for fuel savings to compound. Now, the bZ, it wins zero scenarios in this analysis on pure 5-year economics. It's the best vehicle in the lineup in many ways, but on a strict 5-year true cost of ownership calculation, the incentive [music] gap and depreciation math don't close, even with $10,000 in stacked incentives at the current [music] rates. The only way the bZ surpasses cost of ownership in this example is if you extend the ownership cycle to 6, 7, maybe 8 years,

12:19 then the fuel savings really start to compound. Quick reminder, before I get to the surprise, the true cost of ownership calculator I built last episode works for this video, too. Every number you saw today is in there. Plug in your electricity rate, your commute, your hold period. If you're in Alberta, British Columbia, or you're paying more or less for gas, or if you drive 30,000 km a year, the math updates for your situation, not mine. It's free, it's in the description, go check it out. If you're finding this video useful, consider subscribing. I publish a Battery Bound video every week, and if you have a question about the methodology or a number you want me to defend, put it in the comments. I read them. Now for the surprise. I said at the top of this video there was one more

13:05 vehicle. Toyota eliminated the gas-only RAV4 for 2026. If you walk into a Toyota dealer today and ask for a 2026 RAV4, every single one on the lot has some form of electrification, no exceptions. So, I wanted to run the 5-year math on the 2025 RAV4 XLE all-wheel drive, the latest gas-only RAV4 available, Just to close the loop, at 8 L per 100 km, the gas RAV4 burns through $12,400 in fuel over 100,000 km. Regular gas RAV4 holds about 62% at 5 years. That's 23,000 and change at resale. The cheapest vehicle on this list, the gas RAV4 at 37,400,

13:51 finishes last in the total cost of ownership over 5 years. 4,500 more expensive than the hybrid, 5,000 more than the plug-in hybrid, and about 1,000 more than the fully electric bZ. That's probably why Toyota killed it. Stay charged.