When I talk to people about electric vehicles, I try to frame the discussion less around their gasoline cars being taken away (which isn't actually the case) and more around electrification.
That's the process of adding electric power, in some form, to personal transportation. It can mean fully-electric cars; it also means hybrids. Both are useful tools for reducing gas consumption and carbon emissions across the board, although the former is certainly the best at this. And even if some people feel like they aren't ready to go fully-electric yet, they're increasingly open to hybrid power.
I bring this up to say that the new, all-hybrid 2026 Toyota RAV4 is in a good position here. On this week's episode of the Plugged-In Podcast, my co-host Tim Levin and I discuss why this car matters and how it may get more people into electrified cars than just about any before it (save for perhaps the Tesla Model Y.)
If top-selling cars like the RAV4 go battery-powered (at least partially), it's proof that you can't really stop the electrified car revolution. But in the United States, the Trump administration and a supportive Congress are doing their best to slam the brakes on the entire EV market.
The thing we've been talking about for months has finally happened: the U.S. House of Representatives' version of Trump's omnibus spending bill does, in fact, get rid of EV tax credits and manufacturing incentives. It also makes EVs more expensive to own via new federal taxes. It's got a long way to go until signing, but we're not expecting the Senate or Trump himself to do much to save the pro-EV policies that were driving job growth and a market more competitive with China. Today, we're discussing what all of this means, along with Elon Musk's plans to stay at Tesla for at least five years or until he is dead (or figures out an engineering solution to that problem.)
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Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
