TOYOTA C-HR
Now that the high-riding hybrid hatchback has been with us for more than a month, we’ve been able to subject it to some more of the ‘real world’ tests that your average family car would have to cope with. As you’ll note from the test data below, the average fuel economy has taken a slight knock now that I’m pelting up and down the M3 on my commute five days a week. On those journeys, I’m relying more heavily on the petrol engine. Obviously that’s the power source that the C-HR decides it needs to call upon for 70mph driving, but I’m at least partly to blame – being the person making the control inputs.
I had hoped my driving would be sufficiently conscientious to tease the fuel economy up into the mid-60mpg region. I clearly need to become a scholar of Sir Jackie Stewart and his theory of driving more smoothly by imagining you have an egg betwixt the sole of your right shoe and the throttle pedal. On the other hand, there’s an argument that parallel hybrids such as the C-HR are at their most effective when you don’t overthink and just let it do its thing. This is especially true on those short journeys of the kind that you might undertake at a weekend when you’re doing chores – trips to the tip, the garden centre or the supermarket, for example. On around-town trips of a few miles, I’m regarding any return less than an indicated 60mpg as a disappointment.
The aforementioned visit to the garden centre for bundles of peat and bark chippings did highlight that the C-HR’s boot has an awkwardly high load lip when you’re carrying cumbersome items. True, it’s not quite as difficult as the Atlas stones test in the World’s Strongest Man competition, but if a manufacturer is positioning its car as an SUV, as Toyota is with the C-HR, it needs to be fully adept at the ‘utility’ part of that equation. In a similar vein, since the fivedoor C-HR first arrived I’ve been sceptical about its generosity of space for rear passengers, but that’s proven to be a deception of its exterior styling, which is aimed at a coupé-esque look. It’s quite busy around the rear, with the roof and bodywork tapering towards each other and the door handles integrated into the C-pillar.
Our testers weren’t impressed by rear head room when the C-HR was subjected to our Road Test (4 January 2017) but I recently carried four passengers, with the three in the rear ranging from a six-foot-plus, 15-stone bloke to an infant in a carry cot, and none had reason to complain. Admittedly one could only gurgle, but what those among them who could talk did note was wind noise.
Perhaps this is a by-product of the car’s quiet powertrain making other external sounds more noticeable. More likely, though, is that by coming up with a shape that is appealing to a wide tranche of would-be buyers, and by jacking up the ride height, the C-HR’s ability to slice through the air as efficiently as its sibling, the superslippery Prius, is diminished. Wind noise or not, I’m taking a great deal of satisfaction from cruising along on electric power at any given opportunity and enhancing the C-HR’s lifetime miles per gallon figure. You might argue (with some justification) that a considerately driven Euro 6 dieselengined car would perform just as well in terms of frugality and that might well be true for some drivers with long and traffic-free commutes. For me, though, there are four gnarly stop-start miles at the end of my morning drive into Twickenham where the C-HR doesn’t have to rely on its internal combustion engine at all. I appreciate that won’t solve the world’s pollution ills on its own, but it does feel like a small step in the right direction.
sources: Autocar UK, July 2018
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