Are you talking about the hybrid model? If so, the engine will run to warm itself up and to warm the batteries.

 

warm

When you say the motor will heat things up, do you mean the electric motor.? When you start the car, I thought only the electric motor is running? Does that produce heat to warm the water and oil of the gas engine?
Thanks.

 

ICE starts as needed to make cabin heat. Don’t do a remote warmup when parked in an enclosed garage.

 

So are what you are saying is that if you turn the heat on, the ICE will start up? Under normal starting conditions it seems that only the electric motors start. We're new to this car and just learning the peculiarities of a hybrid. I've walked away from the car leaving the motor running, but that's not happening anymore. Thanks.

 

I think the compressor does Heat and Cold. like a heat pump...

It will produce heat and cold if the batteries have enough charge, Like at a stop light, etc...

But the ICE will come on and heat like a regular car.. to heat the cabin, and if there is battery power... It will shut down and let the heat pump take over, until the battery level drops to 3 bars... then kick on again...

So the heat is the ICE and the battery powered Heat pump ( A/C also )

 

The ONLY source of heat in the US Rav4 HV is the ICE. The hot water is circulated via electric water pump.

 

really, wow,
Thanks for sharing.
I read that somewhere... that the rav4 used a heat pump...
i'll try to find where i made my mistake
?

 

The Rav4h uses a heat pump for "air conditioning". But generally there is free heat available from the anti-freeze used to cool the ICE engine so why not use it.

 

The RAV4 has an electric resistance heater (like a hair dryer) in the auto HVAC system.
Warm air blows almost immediately.
The parts showing the heating element were posted in this forum a while ago.
It would be a big problem we had to wait for the ICE in this hybrid to run enough to get hot enough to heat the coolant, and then warm the cab.
The heat pump thoughts are, waaaay out there.

 

Here's a previous discussion on the pre-heater.

Does 5th gen RAV4 HV have electric heater

On cold days, does the RAV4 HV have an electric heater system that delivers warm air into the interior when the ICE is still too cold to warm the air?

www.rav4world.com