VIDEO: Old TV commercial for all-electric Toyota RAV4 EV
GM's EV1 was the star of the popular documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? but the General wasn't the only large automaker to build fully-electric vehicles when California law demanded it. Ford had the Ranger EV and Toyota made an electric version of the RAV4 SUV, called the RAV4 EV. Many people (including yours truly) liked the little Toyota sport-ute better than the two-seat EV1. Today, when a used RAV4 EV is offered for sale, it almost always costs a pretty penny -- thousands or tens of thousands more than then when they were available at the dealer.
We came across a TV commercial for the electric RAV4 EV (see above video) and were really struck by the simple words "now available." Why? It's a TV commercial for a fully-electric car. You just don't see those nowadays. (EV1 and Volt spots don't count because they suck). Follow the jump to watch the vintage RAV4 EV commercial in its entirety.
Related:
- Toyota RAV4 EV currently up on eBay
- A second Toyota RAV4 EV finds its way to eBay this month
- Toyota RAV4 EV up for bids on eBay
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Colin McCullough 6:53PM (2/19/2008)
this reminds me of GM's "award-winning" commercial about their EV1, which seemed designed to make people AFRAID of the EV1. The first half of this RAV4 video is a list of what this car WON'T do for you. I get the idea of what they are trying to say but you don't have to be a marketing genius to see this isn't a great promotional spot.
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Matthijs 6:37PM (2/19/2008)
Thanx for noticing my upload. Feel free to visit my youtube channel for more video's about electric cars.
http://www.youtube.com/Bogt
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meme 2:00AM (2/20/2008)
Wow, you'll call anything a bad commercial, won't you? What on earth do you expect out of car commercials -- an Oscar?
And what's so bad about the EV1 commercials?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o8Qikti3B8
That one's pretty darn sleek if you ask me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXDGpkcoJhE
What on earth is wrong with that one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOV3zDdKRqQ
Talks about all of the neat features of electric cars with strange ambient music, making the commercial hard to forget. Nah, they're all conspiracies to kill the car because they didn't mention A, or aspect B would drive off potential buyer C, or they only mentioned D....
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Gavin 8:14PM (2/23/2008)
I disagree with "Meme".
In response to his questions asking what's wrong with those videos:
A- The first 31 second advertisement showed less than 6 seconds of the car and provided no info about it.
B- 8 seconds of the car shown in a 60 second advertisement? No info about the car either. Something's not right there.
C- The car's not shown at all and surprise surprise, there's no info given about it.
Compare it to an advertisement for a new Toyota or Cadillac and you'll see the difference. I did.
It's obvious GM didn't want to make the EV1, or they wouldn't have crushed them all once the law was repealed.
There's no conspiracy, it was just business. Bad business, but business nonetheless.
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Blaine Decker 11:18PM (2/23/2008)
PLEASE! its the government. They are ALWAYS behind it. Do you know how many solar panel projects and wind generation projects have never come to pass yet, still to this day, if built will produce enough electricity to power multiple cities even with more elctricity demand. There are multiple places that have an almost 24 hour wind source, and yet no wind generator. Hmm.
Isn't there a quote of some sort where the less we know the safer we are.
There is so much the government never tells americans because if the mass population knew, then the american government would be dissolved instantly from riots and mass murders.
Ignorance is bliss. Or at least thats what they want us to think.
What ever will make the most money for the government is what will prevail.
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