As you suspected, it's only available in Canada. If you had it, there would be a button for it to the left of the 12V power point, ahead of the shifter.

The heating elements run vertically along the driver's side edge of the glass and horizontally where the wipers park; the idea being to reduce buildup of ice and snow in these areas. Unless that's a problem you're having it's hard to see how it would be worth it to try and retrofit this to a US-spec RAV4.

 

I would do some more research (if possible) because my '06 Highlander has the same feature that works off of the REAR DEFROSTER SWITCH along with the HEATED MIRRORS, i.e. - COLD WEATHER PACKAGE.

It's possible that the wiring is already in place, but you won't have the switch, relay and electrical contacts on the OEM windshield since it's a USA model and that feature wasn't offered here. But then again it might work in conjunction with the rear defroster switch like your heated mirrors do. If it's cheap enough, I would go with the heated element windshield and try and get it to work!

Point of info, if you buy a base model without the fog lights you could still hook up a pair using the OEM wiring that's already in place - you would need a switch though.

Mike

 

Sounds like maybe it isn't worth it. Since I am going to put in a claim it would only cost me the deductible for either the windshield with or without the heating element. It would be handy since I travel into Lake Tahoe during the winter. However, the glass guy looked up my VIN and discovered that I didn't have the heated windshield.