• Plenty of space front and rear
• Big boot competitive with rivals…
• … but no smart storage solutions

How much space is there?

Plenty. You’ll have a lot of space regardless of whether you’re travelling in the front or the back of the Toyota RAV4. Head- and shoulder-room in the rear is excellent, even with a tall driver sitting at the helm. The cabin also feels quite airy for an SUV of this size and heft, thanks in part to the panoramic glass roof.

There’s also the benefit of a small and unobtrusive central tunnel (even on all-wheel-drive versions) that only impedes slightly on the middle-seat passenger’s legroom. That means three adults can fit on the rear bench in relative comfort. There’s certainly more space inside a RAV4 than you get in a SEAT Ateca or Skoda Karoq.

Boot space and storage

There’s more good news here, because the RAV4’s boot will be plenty big enough for most families. It measures 580 litres with the rear seats in place, which is only slightly smaller than the Volkswagen Tiguan‘s. Fold the rear bench flat and you’ll unlock a massive 1,690 litres. Toyota boasts that this is big enough to carry a 29-inch mountain bike without taking the wheels off – although we haven’t been able to confirm this.

The plug-in hybrid-powered RAV4 has a smaller boot because the larger battery pack eats some of the space under the floor. Despite this, it can still carry 520 litres, which is only one litre less than the standard Skoda Karoq. The rear bench can be latched to a more upright position to liberate a little more space, while Toyota has left space under the boot board to store the car’s charging cables.

Some versions of the RAV4 also feature nets on either side of the boot, a compartment for loose objects, underfloor storage and a 12-volt power supply. It’s easy to sling items into the back of SUV, too, because the load lip is very low and, if you tick the option box, you can have an electrically operated tailgate. Perfect for when you’ve got your hands full. However, the rear seats only fold down in 60:40 split, as opposed to the more useful 40:20:40 configuration.

Is it easy to park?

Like many of its rivals, the RAV4 has grown in size since the first-generation model. It’s now a much bigger SUV. If you’re lucky enough to have a garage, make sure you get your tape measure out and check that it’ll fit before you buy. You can find the car’s dimensions in our specifications page.

Enormous bulk aside, the RAV4’s blind spots aren’t too bad. Rear parking sensors and a camera also come as standard on the entry-level model, while upgrading to Design trim also brings front parking sensors, meaning you don’t really have much of an excuse if you crash it into a bollard. For those who want greater assistance, a 360-degree parking monitor is available as an option on Excel and Dynamic spec cars.

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Safety

• Plenty of standard safety equipment
• Adaptive cruise control is a bonus
• Five-star Euro NCAP rating in 2019

In an effort to help RAV4 drivers avoid accidents, Toyota has fitted the car with a suite of driver assistance technology. It’s called Toyota Safety Sense 2, and it’s designed to help the vehicle avoid accidents by warning the driver of an impending collision or, in some cases, automatically taking evasive action.

It’s uses a camera mounted in the windscreen and a radar sensor fixed to the front bumper to read the road and send data to the myriad of safety systems. These include Pre-Collision System (which is Toyota’s version of autonomous emergency braking) with pedestrian detection, adaptive cruise control, lane departure alert with steering assist, road sign assist and automatic high beam.

The technology is capable of spotting pedestrians in low-light conditions, and cyclists in daylight hours at speeds of approximately 6-50mph. Of all the safety equipment available on the RAV4, only the blind spot monitor and rear cross traffic alert aren’t standard on the base model. Even so, all versions of the RAV4 come with a five-star safety rating from Euro NCAP, which should be reassuring for buyers. Isofix points are situated on the outer rear seats and are easy to access.