Toyotas are seen as nice cars for nice people, reliable, comfortable and easy to drive. They’ve rarely been seen as being particularly exciting. But make no mistake, technologically, Toyota is ahead in the area of hybrid cars. When the rest of the car industry cynically sat back and waited to see how well hybrid cars would sell Toyota plunged ahead with its Prius model. Since then Toyota has sold three million Prius cars and hybrids now account for a fifth of Toyota’s sales in Europe.
This is the Auris Hybrid Touring Sports, the latest Toyota to get the hybrid treatment and it’s aimed at frugal families and fleet buyers. It’s certainly striking enough, albeit in a recognizably Toyota style. It has an edgy, modern, technological look that won’t suit everyone but it certainly stands out in a market that’s not exactly bursting with handsome estate cars.
It’s no sprinter despite its name. The CVT gearbox generates a noisy 0-62mph speed of 10.9 seconds, but progress is otherwise smooth, efficient and comfortable. Winding through country lanes the car leaned confidently enough in to the corners and proved an easy and extremely comfortable drive. On a trip into town, it was easy to navigate busy streets, across roundabouts and the multi-storey car park. Shoehorning it into the last place on the top floor was easy thanks to the parking sensors and the handy rear-view camera.
Inside Toyota’s designers have managed to relinquish the same amount of boot space in this hybrid model as that in the petrol and diesel models. This is because they have located the additional battery pack under the rear seats so there is 530 litres (rising to 1,658 litres with the rear seats down) available for luggage.
The hybrid engine is as sophisticated as you’d expect from the company behind the ground-breaking Prius; it powers down motorways in Power mode, cruises along in the frugal Eco mode, and can crawl around town in full electric mode. Keeping the needle in the eco zone rather than power area is addictive, as is watching powertrain animation on the dash which shows you when the car is capturing energy from the brakes or driving the wheels on electric power only. Overall the car has CO2 emissions of just 92g/km (as low as 85g/km on other models), and a fuel economy that promises around 70.6mpg. I achieved a still very reasonable 50+mpg and I was not tying to drive the car economically at all. Instead I drove as I normally would in any vehicle.
Now whether you’re happy to pay extra for the cool early-adopter eco-factor and access your inner hippy is up to you. Believe me you do get a warm, smug eco glow when you’re effortlessly cruising in EV-only mode in town (for a mile or so) or when the car switches to EV-only when you’re at speed on the motorway and coasts to save fuel.
You’ll get similar fuel economy in a diesel model and the car will cost you less but then you don’t get the street cred.
