If you refuel when the gas
If you refuel when the gas light is on you can put in about 9-10 gallons when the pump shuts off automatically. The owner's manual says it has a 14.5 gallon tank and there should be about 2.2 gallons remaining when the light comes on ... so where's the missing 3 gallons? Either the tank isn't actually full (a problem with the refueling system), the tank has far more gas in it than it should (a problem with the gauge or measurement system), the tank is smaller than it should be (a problem with the tank itself), or some combination of these.
The workarounds all violate the guidance in the owner's manual: you either have to keep refueling after the pump shuts off, forcing it in until you think it's actually full and risking overfilling and damaging the evap system, or you keep driving well after the low fuel light comes on and the gauge reads empty, risking running out of gas, burning out the pump, and getting stranded.
There are reports of people "topping off" with multiple gallons of gas. There's also reports of people who drive 100 to 150 miles after the gauge reads empty. Something is seriously wrong.
It doesn't matter if you fill at a half tank or at empty, you get the same result: the '19-'20 RAV4 Hybrid has about 9-10 gallons of usable fuel in it, despite having a 14.5 gallon tank.
Should we compare to the Prius tank fiasco a few years back? It was fundamentally similar, with the tank not filling to the advertised capacity. At least with that one it was documented in the owner's manual as part of the design of the vehicle (a bladder tank). Toyota fought and won that lawsuit. The RAV4 doesn't have a bladder tank and this behavior is directly contrary to the owner's manual.
Oh, and the problem seems to only affect North American models. Which means whatever is different between the America models and everywhere else is the cause (my money is on the emissions system).
This article is pure garbage. It reads like a paid promotion for Toyota. And don't get me wrong: I do trust Toyota and I hope they come out with a fix. But when? How much leniency do we give them? Some people are halfway through their lease and Toyota has yet to do anything more than acknowledge a problem to the media and offer an "interim fix" that doesn't actually fix anything. They refuse to buy back the defective vehicles and refuse to fix it under warranty (because they can't). They've promised individuals (as part of dispute resolution) to have a fix by certain dates ... all of which have come and gone. The latest rumors for a fix (nothing official, mind you) are this fall.
I want to have confidence in Toyota's customer care here. But they've been silent. Barely an admission that there's a problem, a token repair that even they admit probably won't fix it, and absolutely no communication of when a fix might come. I'm willing to give some leeway on timelines due to Coronavirus, but even that doesn't excuse the communication problem. And so I've basically accepted that my fuel gauge is broken and my car has a 12 gallon tank. Which still makes for a very usable vehicle, but disappointing to some.