Toyota Will Let Electric RAV4s Stay on the Road

With no public fanfare, Toyota Motor Corp. has agreed to let customers continue driving about 1,000 discontinued electric RAV4 sport utility vehicles that were a precursor to the popular Prius gasoline-electric hybrid.

Toyota’s decision is a rare victory for a small but devoted band of drivers of electric cars and trucks, who say automakers never gave the vehicles a chance to succeed in the mass market. Environmentalists and national defense experts say alternative-fuel and electric vehicles reduce pollution as well as the country’s reliance on imported oil.

Proponents who urged Torrance-based Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. to keep the RAV4s on the road planned to announce the news in a conference call with reporters today. Among them were former CIA Director R. James Woolsey.

“It’s an unprecedented sort of negotiation with an automaker,” said Chelsea Sexton, a member of Plug in America, which argued for the electric SUVs.

“Toyota has been very progressive in responding to consumer demand,” Sexton added. “They didn’t think these vehicles would ever be as popular as they turned out to be. For us there was no question.”

Several automakers produced electric vehicles in response to 1990 air-quality rules requiring 10% of new vehicles sold in California by 2003 to produce no tailpipe emissions.

But after persuading judges to whittle away at the regulations, automakers that had leased the vehicles to customers began reclaiming and destroying them, saying it was unfeasible to continue servicing models that never gained mass appeal.

Toyota made about 1,500 of the compact RAV4s from 1997 to 2003, leasing most to companies and government agencies for fleet use.

About 300 individuals who leased RAV4s were already allowed to continue leasing or to buy them, but Toyota has agreed to extend leases on the fleet vehicles, some of which have fallen into private hands, spokeswoman Cindy Knight said.