In August, Bob Carter, gorup vice-president and general manager of Toyota Motor U.S. said that the 2012 Toyota Rav4 EV will be limited to the state of California. This raised much speculation that the new Rav4 EV is purely a compliance vehicle to satisfy the new California Zero-emission vehicle mandate’s requirements.
Toyota further mentioned that they “will meet [their] ZEV credits mandate with a combination of conventional hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery-electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The specific year-to-year combinations are flexible and will depend largely on market response and infrastructure development. As was the case with the first generation Rav4 EV, the market will ultimately decide.”
Will it though? Many would claim that Toyota pulled the plug on the first generation Rav4 EV when there was still much demand for it…