Since you mention you were an RVer...
Hybrids make great travel/camping vehicles due to massive battery and ability to recharge while driving. Frugal folks are sleeping inside car, using seat heaters to survive.
Might be especially apropos given you are considering larger SUV that is already likely snoozable inside.
Yes! I have seen folks with pop out tents that connect to the car as well. Hybrid batteries are more than equal to serving as power/hvac for such arrangements.
Allows you to go quite a ways off grid and take the comforts with you. Tradeoff yes, but much better mobility and fuel economy than any RV.
Perhaps you had some places you wanted to go that were too tight for the roadmonster. Easy peasy with this kind of setup. And much easier to drive on a long trip.
A lot of businesses have discovered that meeting 80-90% of demand is far more profitable than meeting 100% of demand.I talked to the service manager at a local toyota dealership and he was saying the sales department never made so much money and are in no hurry to go back to the old ways.
Yes! I have seen folks with pop out tents that connect to the car as well. Hybrid batteries are more than equal to serving as power/hvac for such arrangements.
Allows you to go quite a ways off grid and take the comforts with you. Tradeoff yes, but much better mobility and fuel economy than any RV.
Perhaps you had some places you wanted to go that were too tight for the roadmonster. Easy peasy with this kind of setup. And much easier to drive on a long trip.
Both the CRV's and RAV4's for 2023 are not quite out yet. I did get a peak at one 2023 CRV gas EX-L. It was quite nice but I did not get to test drive it because it was sold minutes before we got to the dealership. The gas model has a spare tire whereas the CRV hybrid does not.
Importantly the CRV hybrid is not priced competitively with the RAV4 hybrid. The differential between the CRV gas and CRV hybrid was $7900 out the door pricing. That included $2k over MSRP. The RAV4 was only $2200 differential between the hybrid and gas. So the payback time when one includes gas savings is very reasonable for the RAV4 but way too long for the CRV.
I am guessing that Toyota is well ahead of Honda in building and pricing hybrids.
UPDATE: I have given up on trying to get a RAV4 Hybrid. Too long a delay and we don't drive a car more then about 6k to 8k miles per year.
So have an offer on a Honda 2023 CRV EX-L. It's a very nice driving car, quite and roomy and even has a real spare tire (first trip will be to Death Valley). Gets combined 30 mpg. Consumer rates it #2 of compact SUV's. First year of a new body styling too.
At $4.50 a gallon we would have to go about 10 years to break even on a Toyota RAV4 hybrid. Too long for us to worry as I think our keeping a car for >15 years is a thing of the past.
We are also in the market for a non-hybrid SUV. We looked at the CRV and it looks good although we could not test drive since there was no inventory. Glad to hear you say it drives well and is quiet.
For completeness sake, we are also going to check out the Hyundai Tucson and the Subaru Outback. Then we will pick between the 3.