The E.P.A.’s efficiency rating, expressed in miles-per-gallon equivalent, has not been released, though Toyota said it expected a combined figure of 76 m.p.g.e. For comparison, the Leaf is rated at 99 m.p.g.e. and the Ford Focus EV at 105.

By the end of the day, I had ventured farther north toward Ventura and then back to Venice, clocking 127.6 miles on a single charge, the battery going from fully charged to almost completely empty. I seldom used the Sport mode and ran the air-conditioner for only a few minutes.

The next day, I did my best imitation of an action hero on Los Angeles streets. Trying to find the lower limit of the RAV4 EV’s range, I screeched away from stoplights in Sport mode and blasted the air-conditioner. On that drive, I managed 102 miles, with an estimated 19 miles remaining.

The raison d’être of a big battery is to provide longer range, but the bonus here was that heaping abuse on the Tesla powertrain had relatively little effect on overall range. Through the accelerator pedal I got the feel of Tesla’s devotion to megadoses of electric power, and with the 845-pound battery pack planted beneath the center of the cabin, the handling was solid. (The E.V. version of the RAV4 weighs about 470 pounds more than a similarly equipped V-6 model.)

Using all of the 154 horsepower and 273 pound-feet of torque available in Sport mode — on the road, the power is far more impressive than the numbers sound — my zero-to-60 runs measured a brisk 7 seconds, about the same as a gasoline RAV4 with the V-6 engine. Switching to Normal mode, which cuts torque output to 218 pound-feet, the same run took 1.5 seconds longer.

The RAV4 EV’s brakes are transplanted from the Prius, and follow that car’s operating philosophy for regenerative braking.