Toyota RAV4 topples Tesla Model Y as best-selling car | Hacker News Reader

Toyota RAV4 topples Tesla Model Y as best-selling car

carexpert.com.au

22 points01-_-29 comments

Just wished the RAV4 was as modern and refined and tech forward as the newer comparable Hyundai’s. Reliability of Toyota with the tech and refinement of Hyundai would be unbeatable for the segment. The new rav4 is a step in the right direction at least.

What do you mean by modern and refined? I'm not trying to be funny, I am just curious what those terms mean to you.

Not the original commenter, but I would say that Toyota has a long history of being a few generations behind on tech, and also has a history of hard grey plastic interiors.

I had a brand new Toyota rental last year and wanted to gauge my eyes out of how unusable it was.

They are probably referring to the much larger driver facing curved touchscreens for carplay/android auto that merges with the screen used for the instrument gauge. Also, the driver assist tech on the newer kia/hyundais is very good, especially for highway traffic, needing very little driver intervention.

I had a 2001 Tundra. When I looked at a new Tundra in 2016 it was basically the same interior with the same knobs and controls as my 2001. I ended up with a Ford F150 instead. I think they made changes to the 2017 Tundra interior. Toyota just sticks with what works once they iron out the bugs. Other car manufacturers go for the bling to get people to buy.

Practicality always win. People will eventually get sick of a hip product which is difficult to use and if it is also cheaper? That's even better.

What practical advantage does RAV4 have? Incredibly high cost of maintenance? Terrible driving performance? Lack of air filtration? Inconvenience of pumping toxic cancer liquid in gas stations? Horrible entertainment system?

Missing indicator stalks - only somebody who have never driven a car could come with indicator buttons

Missing wiper stalks - am I really supposed to search for a wiper enable somewhere on a screen while I am driving and can't see in sudden rain?

Missing transmission control - Any kind of Y turn now needs a display to switch from R to D.

Driving performance is incredibly subjective and I would not throw these stones while driving Tesla with stiff suspension feeling every pothole in my butt.

Every car has air filtration, most of them can filter our pollen no problem.

One could say that Tesla has horrible entertainment system when one can't even connect his phone through Android Auto / Apple CarPlay.

Literally all of these are features that people love about Tesla's while CarPlay is terrible.

Pollen filter is nowhere near the efficacy of HEPA filters.

Missing stalks so car is unusable on roundabouts? Using screen to get wipers working? I think that your opinion might be skewed by social bubble you live in, however sales numbers are telling a different story

> Missing stalks so car is unusable on roundabouts

No one really complains about it. If anything people would never go back to stalks.

> Using screen to get wipers working

IIRC buttons on steering wheel.

> I think that your opinion might be skewed by social bubble you live in

I think that's you tho.

> sales numbers are telling a different story

RAV4 toppled Tesla by like 9000 cars, mostly due MY being refreshed. Toyota will be continue to be destroyed by Tesla and Chinese EVs, IMO too slowly tho.

It seems the current version is a plug in hybrid which has always seemed a good solution to me. The cheapness and eco friendliness of electric for daily use but not risking running out of charge on a longer journey.

Reading reviews of journalist switching to electric cars it often seems to go ok until they are stranded at midnight with no power and screaming kids because some charger was out of operation and they say that's it and return to petrol.

PHEVs are worst of both worlds - terrible performance, high maintenance cost. You are 100% sure to replace its battery in cars lifetime, likely multiple times at cost close to Tesla's total battery replacement.

Likelihood of replacing Tesla's battery - less than 1%.

And sure PHEVs do have their use cases - living somewhere where no charge infrastructure exists AND hauling huge loads over long distances - sure! But that use case is like less than 1% for family SUV (and perhaps less than 10% for truck).

Getting stranded with no power and screaming kids can happen with petrol too, it has nothing to do with technology.

Car whose most expensive trim is about the same price as other car's lowest trim.

Which one is which?

The RAV4 is far cheaper than the Telsa, at least here in Australia where TFA is from.

The most expensive RAV4 is around AUD$65,000, while the cheapest Telsa Model Y is around AUD$70,000.

And (more importantly in my book) not made by a company headed by someone who does fascist salutes at public events.

>My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.

During the George W Bush presidency, something they figured out is that you want to drive the democrats crazy with bush derangement.

Then it's turned around to make the democrats seem irrational. Obviously there's many democrats or even Carney here in Canada who have done nazi salutes.

Lots of fence sitters are tired of the false nazi allegations.

>My heart goes out to you.

Do you sincerely believe that it was an 'accidental' Nazi salute (twice)?

Teslas will continue to fall in down the leaderboards as right-wing governments strip EV incentives away. Gas cars won't go away as soon as I previously thought.

Krato-kakisto-pluto-klepto-theocracies will be the undoing of us and the planet. In a more rational world without the yoke of corporate corruption, EVs would heavily subsidized and there would be far more investment in efficient public transport infrastructure.

As long as most countries don’t pump their own oil and the countries that do become increasingly politically unstable, there will be huge national security pressure to adopt EVs. No one wants their economy shut down because Iran decided to close down a straight.

From my perspective (with our prices) - I have no idea how.

RAV4 starts at ~$62.8 with the most expensive being ~$85.5k.

Model Y starts at ~$73k with the most expensive being ~$85.9k.

At the lower end of the scale, neither is a good car, but especially the RAV4.

Why is it not good? Higher trim levels give you all wheel drive, offroad tuned suspension and bigger wheels, but not everyone wants or needs those options.

RAV4 base model starts at $29k USD

Yeah. I don't know where OP is from but I recently helped someone shop for a hybrid and it was a little under 40k for a 2025.

In the US Southeast the cheapest trim is $29,250. Maybe you're talking about hybrid in Australian/Canadian dollars?

    2025 RAV4
    Starting MSRP $29,250

Confirmed.[0]

But not including "Delivery, Processing and Handling Fee" $1,545 (USD) or sales tax, which varies by state/county, typically around 8.25%. So the minimum subtotal is $30,795 USD or grand total $33,335. Fees and prices are (or were) somewhat negotiable.

Also:

    2025 RAV4 XLE $35,490 ("Dealer Advertised Price - San Marcos Toyota")

0. https://web.archive.org/web/20250617171046/https://www.toyot...

Makes me wish IA had regional captures to consider Anycast because what someone in one region saw isn't necessarily what someone else in another saw.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com