Toyota Brings New Electrified Vehicles to Washington Auto Show
While Toyota is teasing off-road vehicles for the upcoming Chicago Auto Show, the automaker is also showing off the new 2020 Highlander, 2021 Mirai, and 2021 RAV4 Prime at the Washington Auto Show, held Jan. 24 to Feb. 2 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
We’ve already talked plenty about the 2020 Highlander, which offers 36 highway mpg and a massive 12.3-inch multimedia display, so we’ll skip it to cover the Mirai and RAV4 Prime, the most modern Toyota electrified vehicles yet.
The 2021 Mirai is the first true overhaul of the hydrogen-powered car since it first launched in 2015. Toyota says it is rebooting the Mirai as a premium sedan “with cutting-edge design, technology and driving performance,” thus focusing not just on its huge range and low charging times (a massive advantage over traditional battery-electric cars) but also on everything else.
Toyota Electrified Vehicles: They benefit from the longest hybrid battery warranty in the industry
That being said, it’s telling that the new RAV4 Prime is possibly even more exciting than a car that runs on hydrogen and emits only water vapor. The RAV4 Prime is the plug-in hybrid variant of the most popular SUV in America, and thanks to some powertrain magic, Toyota somehow managed to get 302 horsepower out of it and a whopping 0-60 mph time of only 5.8 seconds.
That’s two seconds faster than the RAV4 Hybrid and puts the RAV4 Prime in league with luxury and performance SUVs — none of which, it must be said, come close to the fuel economy numbers that the RAV4 Prime puts forward: about the equivalent of 90 miles per gallon, per Toyota’s estimate.
In addition to showing off the Highlander and its new electrified vehicles at the Washington Auto Show, Toyota is presenting its increasingly-familiar array of mobility concepts and prototypes, ranging from the LQ Concept and Micro-Palette to the FV2 concept and Human Support Robot.
Toyota Lineup: Learn more about Toyota’s vehicle offerings
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.