Tell your friends: 0.00% financing and $5,000 cash!

Toyota is now offering $5,000 cash for both purchase and leasing, plus the purchase financing has dropped from 1.9% to 0.00%.

Now is the time for you or your friends to get their RAV4 EV! If one buys a RAV4 EV before January 1st, you're guaranteed a $7,500 Federal tax credit (to the extent that you owe $7,500 or more in taxes for 2012) and a $2,500 rebate from California (in the form of a check, regardless of one's income). Plus you'll be eligible for Car Pool Lane access through January 2015!

On a 3-yr lease, you wouldn't get the $7,500 Federal tax credit, but you'd still get the $2,500 CA rebate and carpool lane access. (And the $5,000 lease cash is at least closer to $7,500 than the previous $3,200 offer was.)

No telling what Congress will do to the $7,500 credit or what our State Assembly will do with the $2,500 rebate in 2013, so get in on the deal while you can!

Are you sh!tting me!!! Both 0% APR financing, ***AND*** $5K cashback??? on a new RAV4 EV purchase, including the "2013" model??? Are you absolutely sure about this???

If so, my suggestion to anyone still on the fence, DON'T WALK, RUN TO YOUR NEAREST RAV4 EV DEALER AND BUY A TOYOTA-TESLA SUV TODAY!!!

Does anyone feel ripped off paying MSRP? I just bought my 2012.

You get $2500 rebate if you purchase. I bought mine a couple days before the rebate went into effect on 12/4.

Is that available from all California Toyota RAV4 EV dealers, or just some in specific "regions", or only certain dealerships? I just checked Toyota's website and could only find a $5k cash incentive applicable to "leasing" 2012 RAV4 EVs; however, the only applicable incentive to "buying" is the most recent availability of 0% APR financing thru TFS for 60 months. Thus, these two incentives appear to be mutual exclusive with respect to leasing vs. financing.

So, I will ask the question again to the OP thread starter, "are you sure of your information, and if so, what is your source???"

And yes, "if only I had waited", is most certainly a belated form of buyer's remorse. The difference between financiing a new RAV4 EV purchase at full MSRP at 1.9% APR vs. 0% over 60 months is about $2820! :roll:

My dealer did not specify whether these deals were specific to that dealership or not, but since it was on a printed internal Toyota memo I saw on his desk that did not show dealership branding and did include residual ($22,410), money factor (0.00001), lease incentive ($5,000), etc., I suspect it's a state-wide offer. That's not to say every dealership will offer it up front (because Toyota loses money at that price), but it's probably out there for the asking if it'll make a sale.

The offer the sales manager made to us in writing was for $5,000 off the MSRP plus 0.00% financing to purchase. With $10,000 down, the monthly payment was $682/mo for 5 years (and we'd get that $10,000 back no later than April thanks to the Federal tax credit and CA rebate).

When we said we'd rather lease, the sales manager offered us $700/mo for 3 years with a $3,500 down payment. The offer included $5,000 of lease cash, an Acquisition Fee of $650, sales tax on the 5k incentive and 3.5k down payment, and a Disposition Fee of $350 (paid when the vehicle is turned in).

reeler said:

You get $2500 rebate if you purchase. I bought mine a couple days before the rebate went into effect on 12/4.

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The $2,500 California state tax rebate began in 2007 under Governor Schwarzenegger, if that's what you're referring to.

If you're referring to Toyota's incentives, up until December 3, 2012, Toyota was offering $2,500 purchase cash and $3,200 lease cash. But now it's $5,000 for both until December 31, 2012.

Blastphemy said:

The offer the sales manager made to us in writing was for $5,000 off the MSRP plus 0.00% financing to purchase.

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Was he referring to the RAV4 "EV"??? If so, why didn't you buy it??? It don't get any better than that!!!

Who said I didn't get it?

Blastphemy said:

Who said I didn't get it?

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FANTASTIC!!! CONGRATS!!! Welcome to the club!!!

I'll posts pictures soon. We went with the lease instead of the purchase. My wife thinks she'll want a Tesla Model X in three years, but could also just buy the RAV4 EV at the end of our lease if it hasn't become obsolete and the battery retains its full capacity despite many consecutive days of "extended" charges.

Blastphemy said:

I'll posts pictures soon. We went with the lease instead of the purchase. My wife thinks she'll want a Tesla Model X in three years, but could also just buy the RAV4 EV at the end of our lease if it hasn't become obsolete and the battery retains its full capacity despite many consecutive days of "extended" charges.

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All batteries lose capacity with time and cycles, and so will the Rav4 and Model X.

I wouldn't worry so much about 100% charge as opposed to letting the car sit at 100%, particularly in heat while unplugged.

One LEAF driver has 60,000 miles with two 100% charges per day. The degradation is about 10% in cool Seattle.

In September, I tested a LEAF in Phoenix that was charged to 100% with half as a many miles that lost 30% of its battery capacity. What was different? The brutal heat. If your Tesla battery is kept plugged in, the Temperature Management System should keep the temperature reasonable. So, the next major impact to battery long life is leaving it at a high State Of Charge (SOC).

Longest life is a cool battery at 50%.

What is the reason for Toyota's recommendation to mostly do standard mode charging to ~80% of the usable battery capacity?

Is it to avoid the battery "resting" at 100% SOC for as little as possible? Or, prevent potential overheating at a full charge? Why is there no recommendation to minimize frequent (partial) charging cycles in general? Surely, the battery has a finite no. of charging cycles it can endure.

Comments?

Luckily, my wife has a parking garage at work, so even though it'll be hot outside for most of the year here in Los Angeles, the car will rarely sit out in direct sunlight. And though she'll probably just leave the car on "extended" for the entire three years, it'll almost never stay fully charged for long.

The usual pattern will probably be drive 30 miles on a full charge, car sits at work in parking garage for 9 hours (no charging), drive 30 miles home, then charge overnight in home garage to get TOS rates. So the car will be fully charged from about 3:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. M-F, and probably sit fully charged more often on weekends if we don't drive anywhere.

Hopefully that will make for a happy battery

Blastphemy, I know you decided to lease, but is this the deal you were offered by a Toyota dealership somewhere in LA?

Get 0.0% APR PLUS $5,000 Finance Cash PLUS $2,500 Loyalty Cash on a new 2012 RAV4EV
0.0% APR for 36 months
0.0% APR for 48 months
0.0% APR for 60 months
PLUS $5,000 Finance Cash, PLUS $2,500 EV Loyalty Cash
Includes Toyota Care
Offer Ends 1/7/2013

0.0% APR includes 36 monthly payments of $27.78 per $1000 borrowed. 0.0% APR includes 48 monthly payments of $20.83 per $1000 borrowed. 0.0% APR includes 60 monthly payments of $16.67 per $1000 borrowed. For example 10% down-down payment varies with credit. Available through Toyota Financial Services to qualified Tier 1 + (plus), Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 credit customers. Available on a new 2012 RAV4EV purchased out of dealer stock by midnight 1/7/2013. Offers cannot be combined. EV Loyalty Cash and Finance Cash offers valid through TFS lease or finance only. See your Toyota dealer for details.

What does it mean "Offers cannot be combined." A buyer cannot get the 0% financing $5000 cashback AND $2500 "EV" loyalty rebate? And what does it mean by "EV" loyalty cash?

I notice that the offer cites "2012" RAV4 EV. What about "2013", or are there any "newer" models even available yet?

I checked my local region, linked to by the area code where I live in Northern CA, and no such offer (other than the 0% financing) appears on the Toyota website. Did you lease from Keyes in LA?

This offer appears to be favorable to customers only at certain LA dealerships. I wonder why? To best of my knowledge, these cars are not selling very well in Northern CA, and perhaps not any better or maybe even worse in the Sacramento area either. Perhaps San Diego is not doing that well either going by the mapped location of most of the members on this forum.

If this "LA" area dealers only offer does not help stimulate sales, I think Toyota should serious consider extending their market to other metropolitian cities in the most populated states across the U.S.

From what I understand after calling four different dealers, some dealers have signed up for the RAV4 EV program and others haven't. Those that sign up and then meet a certain quota of sales get better incentives on their future sales. I think it's the same thing that Chevrolet does with the Volt (which is why Keyes Chevrolet can offer better Volt deals than most other local dealerships). But I'm not entirely sure that's the case - it's all hearsay.

The purchase deal I was offered was $5,000 off MSRP plus 0% financing for 36, 48, or 60 months. There wasn't any mention of an additional $2,500 EV loyalty incentive. I don't know what "offers cannot be combined" means aside from my dealership telling me in late November that I couldn't combine the $2,500 purchase incentive with the $3,200 lease incentive.

I agree with you that I can't conceive of who would turn down either the purchase or lease deals currently being offered...that is, if they're looking for an electric vehicle. There just isn't any other vehicle on the market like the RAV4 EV. If Chevrolet had moved forward with its Volt SUV, we might have gone a different way...but Chevy didn't. And this RAV4 EV can move!

After discussing the RAV4 EV at four different local dealerships (and even two beyond the mileage range of the RAV4 EV), I settled on Hamer Toyota in Mission Hills. My salesperson was Jerry Riboli and my finance guy was Eddie - they were great...very friendly and willing to go the extra mile. Also, Hamer has the electronic registration of DMV info, so plates should come in less than three weeks, meaning I can quickly apply for carpool lane stickers.

Dsinned said:

What is the reason for Toyota's recommendation to mostly do standard mode charging to ~80% of the usable battery capacity?

Is this to avoid the battery "resting" at 100% SOC any for as little as possible? Or, prevent potential overheating at full charge? Why is there no recommendation to minimize frequent (partial) charging cycles in general? Surely, the battery has a finite no. of charging cycles it can endure.

Comments?

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The reason is the same as Tesla or Nissan... to keep the time at 100% to a minimum. The Volt does this by default, and never lets the battery go above 80%, or below 20%. These Rav4 temperature controlled batteries are not going to overheat unless there is a problem (or the pack SOC is low, and the car is not plugged it, then the TMS likely won't work), particularly with relatively slow charging at 40 amps. But, a LEAF absolutely will overheat their batteries by charging at 120 amps (I've done it).

The LEAF battery is literally half the size of the Rav4, with 3 times the current going in. That will really heat up a battery, particularly in the top 20% of the charge.

A charging cycle is not a charge from 40% to 60%; it's the equivalent of zero to 100%, even if that takes 3 charges of 33% each charge.

The BEST you can do to the battery is staying very close to the middle of the SOC, and never let the battery get hot. Heat kills lithium batteries:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=228326#p228326

That must of been quite an extensive evaluation of battery degradation in September. Is there a group of Leaf owners about to file a class action law suit against Nissan over this rapid heat induced battery degradation issue? Has Nissan since offered any further warranty related remedies to the affected owners?

Okay, so the conclusions reached from your LEAF experiences, that "may" also apply to the RAV4 EV, can be summarized as follows:

1. Just as Toyota recommends, standard charging should be the normal recharging regimen. Only do extended charges sparingly, unless you leased of course. :mrgreen:

2. Stay plugged in even when not charging, espeically during the day time, when the car is parked in a very warm climate area; long term 12V battery failures notwithstanding.

3. 240V 40A charging vs. 32A vs. 30A vs. 16A, vs. 120V, although progressively longer in duration, lower charge rates equate to better long term battery life.

Tony, should we be concerned what the dealers do to our cars during their so-called scheduled "health checks" (every 3000 miles)? What I mean is, if the RAV4 EV can have its "GoM" somehow recalibrated to match the currently availble battery capacity, while slowly (normally) degrading over time, will we know when that occurs, and be able to notice a corresponding gradual decrease in maximum indicated range? It is very disturbing to hear that in the case of the Leaf, some cars turned over to Nissan at the Arizona test facility, had their range gauges recalibrated, apparently to mask the real problem with high heat induced, accelerated battery degradation under the pretense of what their "insiders" were calling "instrument error".

Dsinned said:

What is the reason for Toyota's recommendation to mostly do standard mode charging to ~80% of the usable battery capacity?

Is this to avoid the battery "resting" at 100% SOC any for as little as possible? Or, prevent potential overheating at full charge? Why is there no recommendation to minimize frequent (partial) charging cycles in general? Surely, the battery has a finite no. of charging cycles it can endure.

Comments?

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MY experience with Lithium cells in a bicycle and my VW project tells me that you want to avoid either end of the battery's capacity,.ie the bottom or the top. Even though my project batteries have a capacity of 90 amps I only discharge them to 20% of capacity and charge them to only 80%. The best way to do this is to measure the Amp hours in and out because the charge and discharge curves are fairly flat until the knees at the end. It is at the end of charge where the cell voltages start to climb rapidly while only taking on a few more Amp hours of capacity. The same is true of the knee of the discharge curve where cell voltage drops quickly. In each of these situations damage to the cells can take place severely limiting their future capacity.

A year ago, when I first put Lithium batterys in my bicycle, I was having so much fun with the acceleration I was not watching SOC and when I returned two of them were very hot and at low voltage. I subsequently charged the pack without monitoring cell voltages and since these cells lost capacity they went to an overvoltage mode halfway through the charge cycle and I heard a couple of pops as the pressure relief valves burst and there was the smell of solvent in the air. Needless to say those cells were finished. I replaced them and the rest of the pack has continued to hold it's capacity.

Luckily the RAV has a battery monitoring and management system so that we don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. I would like to find a way to measure Amphours used by the vehicle. I can calculate it by keeping track of the Amphours used by the charger but there is some loss due to inefficiency. The SOC charge meter on my VW uses a hall effect sensor to measure amps in and out of the battery pack and does the time and distance calculation on the app on my Android to give me lots of data. My VW averages 200 watts per mile which translates to 5 miles per KW.

Dsinned said:

Tony, should we be concerned what the dealers do to our cars during their so-called scheduled "health checks" (every 3000 miles)? What I mean is, if the RAV4 EV can have its "GoM" somehow recalibrated to match the currently availble battery capacity, while slowly (normally) degrading over time, will we know when that occurs, and be able to notice a corresponding gradual decrease in maximum indicated range? It is very disturbing to hear that in the case of the Leaf, some cars turned over to Nissan at the Arizona test facility, had their range gauges recalibrated, apparently to mask the real problem with high heat induced, accelerated battery degradation under the pretense of what their "insiders" were calling "instrument error".

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Honestly, I wouldn't worry about what the GOM says, even if reset (mine was reset on Rav4 just by disconnecting the 12 volt battery).

What's different on LEAF is that it also has a battery capacity meter that Rav4 does not. That's the meter Nissan was resetting. We have absolutely no indication of what the capacity is, but once we have a Gidmeter for the Rav4, we should have an indication of capacity.

Today, I went to my local dealer to ask about the $5k off sticker offer and was told it only applies to something called a "subvention in a lease agreement. However, TFS is offering 60 monts @ 0% APR to qualified "buyers", but not a $5K discount off MSRP to the same purchaser. I must admit the information on Toyota's "special offers" website is not very clear, and can easily be misinterpreted.

Btw, my local dealer is having trouble selling RAV4 EVs, so if this were available statewide from other Toyota dealers, why would they not be offering it too? I don't know; maybe because they are NOT offering comparable deals, is the very reason they are not selling well at this dealership.

Nevertheless, if anyone interested in buying a RAV4 EV, finds a dealer particularly in the Southern CA area, who offers BOTH incentives, my suggestion to you is, JUMP ON IT - IMMEDIATELY!!! :mrgreen: