Hybrids Only!

Toyota has just revealed the new (2026) RAV4, the latest iteration of its very popular small crossover that was one of the very first mass-market vehicles of this type. It’s been on sale now for 30 years, since 1996. Its success inspired dozens of emulators. Just about every major car company now sells a “RAV4” of its own.

None of them used to be hybrids. You used to be able to get a V6 in a RAV4. You used to be able to get a manual transmission, too.

Now they’re becoming exclusively hybrids. Which means they’re all becoming pretty much the same things.

It’s true they are becoming more fuel efficient as a result. But they are also becoming more expensive. 

The 2026 RAV4 will start at $33,350. This year’s RAV4 – the last new non-hybrid RAV4 you’ll have the opportunity to buy – stickers for $29,800 to start. That’s a $3,550 upsell, in case you’re wondering. It’s true the new, hybrid-only RAV4 will deliver higher mileage. Toyota says 48 city, 42 highway. This year’s RAV4 – the last year for the non-hybrid – touts 27 city, 35 highway.

This amounts to a 14 MPG advantage – averaged – for the 2026 hybrid RAV4 vs. the current (and last-ever) non-hybrid RAV4.

But does the difference amount to any real savings? The additional $3,550 you’d spend – assuming you were interested in buying it – on a ’26 hybrid-only RAV4 could buy about 1,200 gallons of gasoline at current prices (about $2.70 per gallon). The current (2025) RAV’s tank holds about 14 gallons of gas. That works out to about 86 full tanks of gas you’d have to burn through in a non-hybrid RAV4 before the hybrid began to save you any money, assuming you’d bought one.

The non-hybrid RAV4 has a fully-fueled driving range of about 400 miles combined (city/highway). Thus, you’d have to drive it about 35,000 before you’d burned through $3,550 in gas money. At that point, you might begin to save some money, if you’d bought the new RAV4 hybrid.

But not actually. The hybrid’s depreciation losses (relative to what you paid) will be proportionately higher, for openers. You will also have paid more for insurance coverage, because insurance costs are always higher when the replacement/repair costs of the insured vehicle are higher. In states that charge property tax on vehicles, you’ll pay more for that, too – because the tax is based on the retail value of the vehicle.

Even leaving that last line-item out, because you may not be living in a state that forces you to pay a fee to the state as the price of being allowed to retain physical possession of what’s for exactly this reason not your vehicle – the first two line-items are unavoidable because you’re required to buy insurance and you cannot do anything to avoid depreciation.

If it costs $100 more each year to cover the more expensive hybrid than the less expensive non-hybrid, you’ll have spent another $600 over the course of six years, which is now the duration of the average new car loan. Depreciation costs most new car buyers about 30 percent of the original purchase price after about three years. A 2025 non-hybrid RAV is likely to be worth about $8,500 less than it listed for when it was new in about three years’ time. A 2026 hybrid RAV is likely to be worth about $10,000 less than it listed for when it was new after about three years.

Combined, these costs add up to about $2,100 more that you’ll be paying for the 2026 hybrid-only RAV4 vs. the non-hybrid. On top of the $3,550 more you paid for the non-hybrid. That brings up the total buy-in costs to at least $5,650 more – and that’s not factoring in the probability of higher (and more frequent) repair/maintenance cost for the inherently more complex hybrid and the certainty – eventually – of the expense of replacing the hybrid battery pack when it loses its capacity to hold charge.

It all circles back to a question few seem to ask: If hybridizing a vehicle costs the buyer more, how does the buyer save money? The answer, of course, is that it does not. So why would Toyota – and it’s not just Toyota – decide to offer models like the RAV4, which were once very affordable little runabouts – as much-less-affordable hybrids only? Doing this is very likely to assure lower (and slower) sales because fewer people can afford to spend $3,550 buying in, not to mention the other costs they inevitably buy into.

It does not make sense, except in one sense. The compliance sense. This is the hidden cost we’re all (effectively) going to be charged – assuming we want to by into anything that’s new – because it is becoming difficult and may soon become all-but-impossible to buy anything new that isn’t hybridized. It is a form of offloading of the cost of government, which posits regulations – as for example gas mileage “standards” and “emissions” requirements – that must be complied with. The car companies figure out ways to comply – as by hybridizing pretty much everything they sell – and pass the costs along to us, marketing these costs as “savings.”

And this is why we’re rapidly going broke.

It’s the same as regards what it costs to buy a light bulb now vs. what it used to cost to buy an incandescent light bulb. Also what it costs to fix your home’s AC system – which will probably have to be replaced the next time it needs fixing because it uses the “old” refrigerant that cannot be used anymore. Instead of fixing the system you replace it.

Assuming you can afford to.

The real problem is that many people do not understand the source of these costs and so resign themselves to paying them. But it isn’t “just because.” It’s because government – and until enough people understand this – and get really angry about it; angry enough to demand these costs be reduced – they will continue to pay until they can no longer afford to pay.

At which point few of us will own anything – and aren’t likely to be happy about it.

. . .

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