Personally, I have driven a RAV4 couple time, not a fan of it. It feels very "loose".
In my opinion, buying a car is a matter of a bunch of requirement that you will be looking for. Fuel economy is one of the things that you will be looking for, but most important is how the car drives. I wouldn't mind paying 1 or 2 liter extra for every 100 km if the car handles much better the fuel efficient ones. You can have the most fuel efficient car, but if you don't enjoy driving it, I don't think it's worth the saving in fuel.
Here is the math: let's assume the car consumes 2 liter extra every 100km and assume you will be driving 20000 km / year. You are only spending about $200 extra in gas.