2026 Toyota RAV4 GR Sport Is Genuinely Fun To Drive — And Hopefully A Trendsetter

When I reviewed the Aston Martin DBX S last month I pontificated about why performance SUVs are awesome, and why embracing them will improve your life, but of course it’s easy to say that when the SUV in question has 717 horsepower and a base price of almost $275,000. There are many great performance SUVs with five-figure price tags and more reasonable amounts of horsepower out there, but over the past few years only a scant few have been actually attainable for the average consumer and don’t come from a luxury brand.

Toyota clearly saw this wide-open hole in the market and is filling it with the 2026 RAV4 GR Sport. This is not just a RAV4 with a bodykit and badges stuck on — developed in partnership with the Gazoo Racing Division alongside the sixth-generation RAV4 with the aim of bringing the GR experience to the widest audience, the plug-in-hybrid GR Sport lives up to its name in ways I wasn’t expecting. This thing is genuinely fun to drive, noticeably different from a standard RAV4 while still being one of the most efficient SUVs on sale. And, I mean, just look at it! The RAV4 GR Sport is the kind of crossover I’ve been waiting for.

Full disclosure: Toyota flew me to Phoenix, put me up in a hotel and fed me for two days so I could drive the entire 2026 RAV4 lineup.

No, seriously, the RAV4 GR Sport looks awesome. It has a unique front bumper with a huge lower grille that’s flanked by functional air curtains with vertical LED running lights, a design similar to that of the GR Corolla. The 20-inch wheels are each almost 5 pounds lighter than the 20s of normal RAV4s, and they’re wrapped in Dunlop Sportmaxx summer performance tires. Behind the split five-spoke design are red GR-branded brake calipers. All the exterior trim is glossy black, of course, and the wheel arches are wider.

Best of all is the large rear spoiler, which does increase downforce, though Toyota doesn’t say by how much. More importantly, it looks sick, standing tall above the roof with a silhouette created by the shape of the rear window edge. The GR Sport’s suspension is 0.6 inch lower, and the track is 0.8 inch wider, improving the RAV4’s already nice stance. I think I especially like how the GR Sport looks because it reminds me of the 2001 Toyota RSC, one of my favorite concepts, especially in the face and the rear haunches.

Those are the changes you can see, but there are a bunch you can’t. It gets model-specific coil springs and damper tuning along with a front performance damper, a rear suspension cross member brace and lower control arm covers, and different power steering mapping in Sport mode. Toyota also says it added static elimination material on the front driver’s seat and aluminum tape in the headliner so the suede interior trim won’t shock you, which is something I can’t say I’ve seen called out by an automaker before.

The GR Sport uses Toyota’s sixth-gen plug-in-hybrid system, and while it’s the same setup and has the same specs as the RAV4’s other trim levels, that’s fine — it’s got 324 horsepower total, after all. The naturally aspirated 2.5-liter inline-4 produces 186 hp and 172 pound-feet on its own, and it’s paired with three motor-generators: the primary one up front makes 203 hp and 201 lb-ft, and an electric motor independently powering the rear axle has 91 lb-ft of torque. Toyota says the GR Sport has an estimated 48 miles of electric-only range, which is better than almost every other plug-in hybrid on sale, though weirdly unlike other 2026 RAV4 PHEV trims, it doesn’t have the CCS port for DC fast charging or the 11-kW onboard AC charger. You’re stuck with a J1772 charging port and a 7-kW onboard charger, which can take the GR Sport from 10% to 80% in about four hours.

All of that adds up to a legitimately fun time behind the wheel. The RAV4’s PHEV powertrain is excellent; the electric motors are always being used for acceleration even when the internal combustion engine is running, so you get an EV-style torque punch when flooring it accompanied by the whizz of the motors. Instrumented tests of the outgoing RAV4 PHEV pinged it at about five and a half seconds, and the GR Sport feels at least a couple tenths quicker. Top speed in EV-only operation is more than 80 mph, and you can now floor it in EV mode, so it feels quick even when the engine isn’t on. 

Toyota says it wanted the GR Sport to be “confident and natural,” and the four key areas of improvement were cornering stance, driver feedback, traceability and turn-in. After driving it back-to-back with the standard RAV4 PHEV, it is noticeably better in all of those aspects. The suspension is firmer without being any more uncomfortable, body roll is nearly eliminated, and it’s more eager to dive into corners. Those summer tires are quite grippy, and the all-wheel-drive system does a good job of distributing torque between the axles, reacting quickly to driver inputs. Sport mode makes more of a difference here than in the other RAV4s in how it tightens up the handling and enhances powertrain responsiveness, and the steering definitely becomes weightier and more communicative. It’s nothing like the kind of feel or feedback you get out of, say, a GR Corolla, but the GR Sport’s steering is direct and it’s easy to make small corrections.

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The GR Sport has a simulated shift mode for the electronic CVT, complete with paddle shifters, and while clicking through the “gears” doesn’t improve the experience to me, “downshifting” is a way to emulate strong regenerative braking, though the noise from the engine isn’t always pleasant. Toyota fit the new RAV4 with its first electronically controlled brake system, which mixes friction braking with regenerative braking to recover as much energy as possible while retaining good pedal feel (and the pedals themselves are nice aluminum sport units), but there aren’t adjustable levels of regen to slow you down when letting off the accelerator.

On twisty roads surrounding the Saguaro Lake area the GR Sport has me grinning in a way that compact SUVs rarely ever do. The fact that I’m in a bright red Toyota crossover with a big spoiler is definitely part of the reason for the smiles, but this really is an enjoyable car to hoon even when you aren’t taking full advantage of its silly amount of power. It helps that it’s damn efficient, too. In addition to that long EV-only range, Toyota estimates the GR Sport will get 41 mpg city, 34 mpg highway and 37 mpg combined, better than all of its competitors even despite the summer tires. It’s a very reasonable, logical purchase, then.

The GR Sport also fixes some of the new RAV4’s interior problems. The heated steering wheel is wrapped with perforated leather, so it’s actually nice to grip unlike the normal one. Heated and ventilated front sport seats with thicker bolsters have Brin Naub synthetic suede centers, plus red stitching and piping, of course. Sadly, the GR Sport suffers from the same hard plastics, uncomfortable armrests and iffy material and build quality as other RAV4s.

This latest generation of RAV4 debuts a brand new infotainment system that’s a massive step up for Toyota. The GR Sport comes with the larger 12.9-inch central touchscreen and the same 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster, running software that’s very customizable and has lovely graphics, easy-to-use menus, cloud-based navigation and a much higher level of functionality. You get a special GR animation upon startup, as well.

Daniel Golson / Jalopnik

There’s a new voice assistant that’s a lot more useful, a wireless phone charger and a bunch of USB-C ports (annoyingly only 15w ones instead of the stronger 45w ports of other trim levels), and lots of active-safety systems like automated emergency braking with pedestrian detection, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, lane-departure warning with steering assist, and a 360-degree camera view. The GR Sport also has standard features like dual-zone automatic climate control, a power tailgate, rain-sensing wipers with a de-icer, and keyless entry and pushbutton start. But it misses out on some of the new RAV4’s fanciest features like the panoramic sunroof and head-up display that are on other trims.

Toyota hasn’t priced the RAV4 GR Sport yet, but it’s not gonna be that cheap. A 2025 RAV4 XSE plug-in hybrid starts at $50,135, so it’ll certainly be a little more than that at least. “Daniel, that definitely disqualifies this from being an ‘attainable’ performance SUV,” I can hear you saying, and I understand and somewhat agree with that sentiment. But the average price of a new car in the U.S. just passed $50,000 for the first time, and the RAV4 GR Sport doesn’t really have any competition at or below that price point, or even slightly above it. I mean, the most basic BMW X3 you can get is $50,900. A starting price with a five at the front does make the new RAV4’s low-rent interior bits even more egregious, but the rest of the GR Sport is compelling enough that I don’t mind it as much.

I don’t really know what sort of person is going to buy the RAV4 GR Sport, but I hope people actually do, and that it won’t be relegated to a forgotten chapter of the history books. Despite its silliness — really, because of its silliness — it deserves to be taken seriously as a real enthusiast machine. And if the GR Sport gains traction, here’s hoping it inspires other automakers to get in on the action. I’d love to see a Honda CR-V Si, a Hyundai Tucson N, a Subaru Forester STI. You know you want a Mazdaspeed CX-5. And maybe down the line Toyota will do an even crazier GR RAV4… A man can dream.

Y’all might not want to hear it, but there are tons of people out there who enjoy driving and, for whatever reasons, want to or need to buy an SUV. They shouldn’t have to miss out on great performance because of that — and with the 2026 Toyota RAV4 GR Sport, they’ll get great efficiency, too.