Will your next Toyota be electric? First drive of the +C-HR

The numbers from the licensing office say it all. Just over 7,000 XPeng G6s are already on the roads here, and more than 11,000 Tesla Model Ys. Even the Hyundai Ioniq 5 has delivered nearly 6,400 units, and the Škoda Enyaq about 4,000. In comparison, fewer than 2,400 Toyota bZ4Xs, the competitor, are currently registered in the country.

Toyota's first electric vehicle did not achieve the expected commercial success, neither in Europe nor in Israel, far from the numbers the world's largest car manufacturer is used to. Charging was too slow, the price too high, and the first deliveries to customers were delayed by almost 10 months due to wheel bolts that tended to loosen while driving, suddenly turning the new electric vehicle into a three-wheeled car—a fault in the lowest-tech component of a vehicle supposed to be the most advanced from the manufacturer.

"Even the name wasn’t right; bZ4X sounded more like an email password," admitted Daiseko Ido, the chief engineer of the C-HR+, the new electric crossover meant to reignite Toyota's EV sales in the West. In China, however, it’s doing better, with a series of models developed together with GAC.

We met Ido at the first drive event of the new vehicle in France. Four cars, still marked as prototypes, for a first meeting on the road and even on the cobblestones around Chantilly Castle near Paris.

With a length of 4.52 meters, width of 1.87 meters, height of 1.6 meters, and a wheelbase of 2.75 meters, the new sibling is 17 cm shorter, 1 cm wider, 5 cm lower, and with a 10 cm shorter wheelbase. If the bZ was even slightly larger than the RAV4, the C-HR+ is just a bit larger than the BYD Atto 3.

It’s not as attractive as the Kia EV3, but it still manages to look like a Toyota, with the new front design adopted by the manufacturer’s models, and is still prettier and lighter than the bZ, especially in models with a blacked-out roof.

There are physical knobs to control climate temperature, and additional operations are handled via a touch strip at the bottom of the large screen. Less intuitive than your Corolla, but still at a level that the average Chinese car hasn’t reached yet. Wireless charging for two smartphones is standard, as is heating for the front seats in all trim levels.

It’s not some unusual generosity—heated seats consume less battery than the ventilation heating coils. So Toyota—and any other manufacturer that suddenly added this feature—tries to encourage you to mainly use the heating methods that affect the driving range less.

But not everything is perfect: There’s no glove compartment, and the large storage compartments between the driver and passenger are not really a replacement; we’re used to having both. Around the steering wheel, there are levers to control regenerative braking intensity, but they are reversed for those accustomed to this efficient solution from other EVs: The right reduces braking power, the left actually adds it. Also, even at maximum regenerative braking, there is no one-pedal driving.

Space is good both front and rear, except for limited headroom due to the sloping roof. The rear door windows are relatively small, bringing one of the less successful elements of the C-HR here—a relatively dark rear seat.

We initially drove the mid-range version, which shows good performance, but not like the all-wheel-drive version we continued with, which enters sporty territory. The motor has normal and eco modes, and when we asked the engineer why there’s no sport mode, the Japanese engineer responded jokingly, “Why, were you lacking power?” No, not at all. With 0-100 km/h in 5.2 seconds versus 7.3 seconds with the large battery and front-wheel drive, and 8.4 seconds in the base version, this is indeed the expensive model in a sporty crossover. “Are you keeping sport for an official GR sport version?” we wondered. I’m not sure how to interpret the smile I received, but there was no denial.

Toyota boasts a warranty of up to 10 years or one million km for the battery, but after 160,000 km or 8 years, an annual check is required, which the local importer charges hundreds of shekels for. We achieved consumption of about 450 km in the front-wheel-drive version with large wheels and about 420 km with all-wheel drive.

Despite the joint development with Subaru, Toyota refrained from installing Subaru’s X-Mode system on its version. The equivalent Enchanted will have it, maintaining superior off-road ability, along with a raised wheelbase by 1.5 cm, totaling 20 cm.

So Toyota has learned to engineer modern EVs, but does it know how to price and market them? The base trim comes with a manually adjustable driver seat, the electric version we saw only in the expensive AWD trim. Also, an electric tailgate and panoramic roof will be reserved for higher trims. When Chinese brands combine such features in most or all base versions, it means Toyota still hasn’t realized that the old pricing doctrine is no longer relevant. Once, we would pay extra for power windows, power steering, or AC. Whoever doesn’t standardize them will fall behind in competition.

And this comment also applies to overall pricing. Kia already showed with the EV3 that a Western manufacturer can price a modern electric crossover competitively against the Chinese. Toyota can afford a small premium above BYD, Chery, or Geely, but not an unlimited one.

At about NIS 180,000 for the small battery and around NIS 200,000 for the large one, the C-HR+ could be a very relevant competitor for our market under current taxation. Higher price tags would show either that the bZ lesson hasn’t been fully internalized, or worse, that the big Toyota cannot compete with the Chinese value proposition—a worrying issue for the future. The C-HR+ has a lot of local potential, beyond the ability to bypass Erdoğan’s embargo with another successful crossover. Hopefully, the price will allow that potential to be realized.

control, blind-spot warning

The author was a Toyota guest in France