The Japanese finally listened to the persuasion, the new RAV4 incarnated as the small Prado, and the sales have stabilized?
From a global perspective, Toyota's RAV4, as a veteran of urban SUVs, has maintained good sales and reputation overseas, with cumulative global sales exceeding 12 million units. In the domestic market, RAV4 Rongfang's performance has also been relatively stable, and it is synonymous with reliability and practicality, but recently affected by new energy SUVs, sales have certain ups and downs. However, we have recently received some news about the new Toyota "RAV4" in the overseas media, and the new model will be unveiled next year, and the appearance will be renewed, and the hybrid system will be upgraded, so the question is, what is the expected product power of the new car? Is it worth the wait?
The square box is the trend, and the new car is going to be transformed into a small Prado?
The current domestic Toyota RAV4 Rongfang is the fifth generation model, which has been launched for several years, but because the new car comes from the TNGA-K platform, the product still has a very good sports foundation, including driving control, chassis sportiness and other aspects are at the leading level in the same class, compared with some SUVs in the same class, RAV4 Rongfang also seems to be easier to drive.
According to overseas media sources, the new generation of "RAV4" will be unveiled next year, there have been a lot of speculations about its changes, and some hypothetical pictures have been exposed on the Internet recently, but there seem to be some differences, that is, whether the new car will be replaced with the hard style of the new Prado, or the sports style of the new crown.
Specifically, after using the new Prado such a square box shape, the new RAV4 Rongfang's product style will also undergo great changes, a change in the urban sports shape, become more wild, a large number of tough lines and the use of wide surrounds will enhance the vehicle aura, more importantly, now the country is setting off a wave of hard-style, many SUVs are using the hard-core shape, coupled with the new Prado's design is widely acclaimed, so the new RAV4 Rongfang if this shape is used, I believe that the country will be popular.
In addition, there is some news that the new RAV4 Rongfang will use the new crown design style, which also means that the new car will continue the urban SUV route, smooth lines, avant-garde lamp group design young people will not resist this, but at present, there are many types of domestic SUV models, the new RAV4 Rongfang wants to get out of the circle, the difficulty must not be small.
At the same time, we also saw several sets of imaginary pictures of the new RAV4 Rongfang interior, compared with the interior of the current model, there have been all-round changes, more accurately it should be directly applied to the design style of the new Camry, including asymmetrical center console, suspended central control screen, it looks rich in a strong sense of hierarchy, at the same time, we can also see a new style of electronic gear handle, the visual effect is completely new, in short, if this interior is used in the future, I believe that the user's reputation will not be bad.
If you go the hard route, is it possible to play off-road?
Judging from the development trend of domestic SUVs, there have been many cars that have embarked on the hard-style route, designed more like a square box, which looks quite bluffing, but users like it, but the vehicles generally do not have too many off-road attributes under these appearances, and it is still an urban SUV, so if the new RAV4 is released with the hard style of the new Prado, will there be an improvement in off-road?
First of all, we can take a look at some body data of the current RAV4 Rongfang, the current model is about 4.6 meters long, the car height is close to 1.7 meters, and the wheelbase is 2690 mm, which belongs to the standard compact SUV body, and the maximum approach angle is about 18 degrees, and the maximum departure angle of 20 degrees also belongs to the urban SUV level, which is not very suitable for off-road, but it should be noted that these body parameters can be improved by replacing the front and rear bumpers. In contrast, the minimum ground clearance, which is not easy to adjust, seems to be more representative of the upper limit of the vehicle, or from the current model, the RAV4 Rongfang minimum ground clearance is more than 190mm, and the minimum ground clearance of the four-wheel drive version is worse. Obviously, this data performance is the leading level in the same level of SUV products, the minimum ground clearance of some hard-core off-road is basically more than 200mm, and the current RAV4 Rongfang is not too far behind, so on the whole, RAV4 Rongfang has a good off-road foundation.
However, it should be noted that, from the perspective of the platform, the new RAV4 Rongfang will still use the TNGA-K platform, the platform has good versatility, the platform bandwidth is also very high, and the maximum length of the car is more than 5 meters without any problems, which actually shows that the new RAV4 Rongfang can easily achieve body size lengthening and improve the interior space, but it is not easy to say about the changes in suspension and stroke, one of the reasons is that the TNGA-K platform is a transverse, The load-bearing body platform is more suitable for sedans and urban SUVs, while the hard-core off-road has generally higher requirements for body rigidity, chassis structure and suspension stroke, which is difficult for TNGA-K platform models.
Speaking of which, there is another key to affecting off-road performance, that is, power and four-wheel drive, so how much can the new RAV4 Rongfang upgrade in this regard? Regarding this, it is almost certain that the new car will use the fifth-generation THS hybrid system, that is, the hybrid used by the new Camry, compared with the fourth-generation THS, the new hybrid system is replaced with a ternary lithium battery, and a miniaturized high-speed motor is used to reduce the weight of the three-electric system, further reducing the loss, and the power and fuel consumption performance will be better than before. In addition, referring to the 2.0L hybrid, 2.5L hybrid, and 2.5L fuel powertrains given by the new domestic Camry, it is expected that the new RAV4 will also follow, which also means that pure fuel may not be given up in the short term, which is actually helpful for lowering the price threshold.
In terms of four-wheel drive, the four-wheel drive version of the new RAV4 Rongfang fuel version is likely to be streamlined, on the one hand, the user demand itself is not large, and the other is that the price is not cheap, and the hybrid version also has a four-wheel drive version, or refer to the current RAV4 Rongfang, its hybrid version uses the electronic four-wheel drive system of E-Four, under the THS hybrid system, the four-wheel drive system will not change much, its advantage is that it only needs to add a motor to the rear axle, without a mechanical drive shaft, you can achieve the four-wheel drive effect, improve driving control and fuel economy。 But it also has some limitations, that is, the power of the rear axle motor is not large, for example, the maximum power of the rear motor of the current RAV4 Rongfang hybrid four-wheel drive version is only 40kW, so the performance improvement will not be particularly obvious, and it can only be regarded as a timely four-wheel drive form, and the motor will not participate in the power output after daily driving, so on the whole, even if the new RAV4 Rongfang uses the hard-core style that everyone likes, it is still a main urban family SUV in its bones.
Epilogue:
Although there is no official substantive action, but consumers are anxious for the arrival of the new RAV4 Rongfang, judging from the existing news, the new car may have two style routes, of which the hard design is undoubtedly more suitable for the needs of domestic users, as for the new car off-road under the TNGA-K platform, There may be a limited improvement in power, considering that domestic users are more interested in the design itself, rather than the real off-road, so if Toyota can perfectly understand the needs of the Chinese people this time, I believe that the new RAV4 will not be too much of a problem to usher in a turnaround.