2017 Toyota C-HR Hybrid Review – The SUV You Need

I’ll talk about Toyota C-HR in this detailed review. It’s a very popular SUV all around the world. It’s a subcompact SUV. You may have seen C-HR in your neighborhood. But have you ever thought about what could be the full form of C-HR, its “Coupe High Rider”. I kid you not. I’ll be reviewing Toyota C-HR G LED version. This is 1.8 Hybrid. The hybrid variant always comes in 2-wheel drive.

The word coupe is from the coupe-ish design it has, you will also get the feeling of an SUV riding it. As it’s a hybrid car, you will get that hybrid feeling as well. So, it’s kind of “one car many feeling” sort of thing.

The design of this car is so good that one must wonder who’s the main designer of this car. Well, the guy’s name is Hiro Koba. He is a race car driver and also the Project Engineer for Toyota C-HR.

This car is built on TNGA. Which stands for Toyota New Global Architecture. I’ll discuss more on this term later in this review, so keep reading.

Toyota has been making cars built on the TNGA platform since 2016. For a long time, Toyota has been making boring safe cars for mass people and people kind of got tired of this. People wanted something new. Toyota listened to that and then TNGA happened.

When you see this car for the first time, you will love it for its amazing design. This car was mainly designed for the European market. One of the central themes of this car is diamond. You will see diamond-shaped designs almost everywhere if you look closely. In the headlight section, there are small diamond-shaped designs that reflect the light.

There are multiple layers at the front of the C-HR. There’s a fog light, park assist, and daytime running light in the C-HR.

With TNGA, there’s a collision advantage in this car. If the car faces any front collision, it will take the vibration and take it sideways without affecting the passengers. So, you can see, that there are fewer chances of getting injured because of having TNGA.

The headlight design is very dynamic. In the headlight, there’s C-HR written inside. There are many layers in the headlight that you can see.

It comes with 18-inch rims. There’s a dot at the front side mirror and you’ll see the same dot two more times at the back. You must be wondering? What are these dots for? Well, this works as a vortex generator. It will make sure there’s better aerodynamic efficiency.

There’s a spoiler in the car. Also, a shark fin is present at the top. The exhaust in the car is not quite visible. You have to really bend down if you want to see the exhaust.

The trunk space of this car is huge. It has a 377-liter trunk space. You can easily carry two pieces of luggage in the trunk. There’s no spare tire with the car. If you want to keep additional cargo, you can fold down the passenger seats.

One thing I need to mention about the door handle of the passenger seats. The handle is not located down, it’s at the top. So every time your kids want to get inside the car, chances are you have to open the door for them.

This car has an 1800 cc high thermal efficiency engine. The engine is of Atkinson cycle. It will give you decent efficiency but won’t give you decent power. It is a environmentally friendly engine and absorbs less oil. It has a generator, which has an electric motor and a torque converter. It helps to run the hybrid system.

Now let me tell you a fun fact. Often times our car battery breaks down and we need to jump-start the car with another car battery. If you’re driving a hybrid car, never ever jump-start another normal car with your hybrid car battery. The battery is not that powerful to jump-start another normal car, chances are your car’s internal system can get damaged doing so. You can jump-start another hybrid car. Another normal car can jump-start your hybrid car. But your hybrid car can never jump-start another normal car. It’s a big NO-NO.

Another thing about hybrid cars you should know is, that if you open the fuel pump and leave it open for 30 seconds, then try to fuel your car, the fuel won’t get it. Because the valve inside gets closed after a certain point.

C-HR comes in 8 different colors. Grey and black, red, white, black, yellow, brown, cyan, and electric blue. The car comes with self-healing paints. Meaning any small scratches on your car will get self-healed. How cool is that?

The push start button is behind the indicators, you may find it hard to locate at first. But once you’re used to it, you will find it easily. The seats are really comfortable. Because of the TNGA platform, you will get more visibility from the driver’s seat, as the pillars are thin relatively.        Everything is driver-focused in this car.

There’s steering control available. You can pick up calls and end it. There’s a 12V charging socket. This car also has a break hold.

So, what is this “Break Hold” technology? Well, in the traffic jam, you have to put your leg in the break so that it doesn’t move on its own. But with break hold technology, you don’t have to do that anymore. You can simply press Break Hold and the car will automatically stop at that position. Then again when you press the accelerator, the car will start moving. How awesome is that?

Toyota will eventually roll out this break hold technology on every car with the TNGA platform. If you look at the car, everything is diamond-shaped.

There’s automatic climate control and air control in this car. The car seat has heated technology. So, people who live in the cold area will be comfortable riding this car. There’s nanoe technology in this car, which keeps the breathable air balanced. It kills 99.99% viruses in the air.

You can open the glove box with a press of a button. The passenger seat can be adjusted in 6 ways.

One major drawback of this car is the visibility from the passenger seat. The window is really small, and you may feel claustrophobic if you go for a long drive. There’s no armrest in this car. There’s ample place for foot placement.

This is a 1.8 Liter hybrid I’m talking about. The combined output of this car is 122 HP. The driver can ride the car with ease. Toyota C-HR has 3 different modes to drive. Normal, Eco & Sport mode.

The throttle response in normal mode is quite decent, but it’s bad in eco mode.

It has cruise control. You can set the speed and the car will go at that speed. The turning radius of this car is very good. It has lane departure assist.

This car also has a pre-crash collision system. This means the car will break on its own if there’s a possible chance of crashing with another car.

So, let me know how was the review?