2021 Toyota Yaris Cross review: The most frugal SUV on the market?

CarExpert

Is this the world's most frugal SUV? The 2021 Toyota Yaris Cross Urban Hybrid aims to take the Yaris, make it bigger and then keep the ultra fuel efficient hybrid drivetrain from the smaller Yaris. Paul Maric tests out Toyota's latest SUV to see if it's any good.  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Toyota content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota More Toyota Yaris Cross content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/toyota/yaris-cross  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 00:54 Interior 03:20 Infotainment 04:53 Safety Tech 06:03 Practicality 06:59 On the road 10:54 Verdict 16:33  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #review #toyota #yariscross

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So just when you thought we'd reached peak SUV, Toyota thought they'd roll out

00:04 an SUV version of their mini hatch, the Yaris. It is called the Toyota Yaris Cross, and this one here

00:11 is the Urban 2WD Hybrid version. It's one of the big advantages Toyota has over its competitors.

00:17 They're able to put hybrids into virtually anything and then charge a little bit more for

00:22 them. So this is priced at just under $35,000, and it competes with things like the Mazda CX-3,

00:28 the Kia Seltos, the Hyundai Venue, all of those small SUVs that have come from hatches. Today,

00:34 we're going to do a detailed review of this car. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of

00:38 this review, you can use the time codes up on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube,

00:42 just scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already, make sure you hit

00:46 subscribe and press the bell icon so you can find out every single time we drive an SUV that's come

00:51 from a hatch. Okay, let's talk exterior. So you have eight external colors to choose from, and

00:57 all but black is an additional $500. You can also get a black roof for an additional $450,

01:03 so you can see that fitted to this car. I think it looks good, adds a bit of character to it.

01:07 Now let's talk about the design. So this actually looks really different to the Yaris. The Yaris

01:12 kind of just has a very small hatch, pedestrian kind of look. It is a little bit out there,

01:16 but the Yaris Cross takes it one step further with those SUV proportions. It's got this big

01:21 grill over here, despite the fact most of it is actually blocked out. Just got a little section

01:25 there for air and cooling. Then you have the radar sensor up the front, plus a camera too.

01:31 Now, if you have seen our other Toyota Hybrid reviews, you'll know that you can tell a hybrid

01:35 Toyota apart from the rest because of the blue inside the logo. Now in terms of headlights,

01:40 you have full LED headlights with LED daytime running lights. The indicator looks pretty cool

01:45 as well. It takes up that entire side section. I like this color too. Toyota's kind of trying to

01:51 buck that boring image that they have by offering a whole bunch of colors that stand out along with

01:56 your standard colors that kind of just blend into everything. So it's good to see a number

02:00 of options there. Then around the side here, we have 18-inch alloy wheels. I like this design.

02:06 You've got that sort of brushed chrome look on the outside and then dark on the inside. Now,

02:11 18-inch alloy wheels, a fairly low profile tire. I'll be keen to see how this goes in terms of

02:17 ride and then have a look at this. It's not as bad as the Mazda CX-3, which takes up half the front

02:21 end of the car in terms of plastic cladding, but you can see that Toyota wants everyone to think

02:26 that this can go off-road, even though it only really has 170 millimeters of ground clearance,

02:30 the same as a Kia Carnival. Our Hybrid badge off to the side here as well, just in case you missed

02:36 the blue on the Toyota badge. A little bit of piano black on that mirror and then you have a

02:40 camera built into the bottom section. There's that black roof I was talking about. This section here

02:45 is actually a wrap and then the rest is painted and then privacy glass and cover to the rear.

02:50 This is where Toyota has really sort of taken it to the next level in terms of design. Have a look

02:54 at this. This is the type of stuff you wouldn't expect to see on a Toyota three or four years ago.

02:59 Those big pronounced wheel arches, you've got these flat sections, LED lights built into that

03:04 entire part there. You've got this little spoiler here as well and then a shark fin antenna. Let me

03:09 know in the comments section below, what do you think about the design? I think it is quite a

03:13 neat looking car and it is quite expensive when you consider what the Yaris used to cost, but I

03:17 think they've actually done a good job with the design to justify it all. Okay, we are inside the

03:22 Yaris Cross. Before we talk styling, let's start off with the key. Here it is here. You have lock,

03:27 unlock, boot, the Toyota logo, nothing on the back and it is a proximity sensing key. So just

03:32 leave that in your pocket, grab the door handle to unlock the car and then use the push button start.

03:38 Okay, styling. Yeah, look, there's a lot going on here. So you have the top tier of the dashboard,

03:45 it's broken up by this silver trim highlight. Then you have this brown. The brown sort of

03:51 follows its way through onto the seats as well and then the seats have this sort of tartan style

03:56 material on them. I don't know, I think it looks cool. Maybe I'm definitely not the definition of

04:02 cool, but I think it looks cool. It is kind of let down by this infotainment system. We'll run

04:08 through that in a second, but it just looks tiny and poxy. But outside of that, I think it is

04:12 vibrant and youthful, which is kind of what they're trying to aim for with the Yaris Cross.

04:17 Now in terms of the materials, you can see here most of that's soft. It does get quite scratchy

04:22 the further you go down the cabin, but this top section is nice and soft. Touch points over here,

04:26 there's no center armrest, there's nothing to lean on. And then over on the door, that's

04:30 pretty firm there as well. So while you're driving, you kind of don't really have anywhere

04:34 to rest your body bits. Now how firm are those surfaces? Well, we've tested them with our

04:40 geometer. If you want to see how the Yaris Cross compares with other cars that we've tested,

04:44 just scroll down and use the link in the description. What about build quality?

04:48 Well, it all feels pretty solid actually. Yeah, nothing to complain about. Righto, infotainment.

04:54 So I mentioned before that it kind of looks a little bit small and a little bit chintzy that

04:59 they've gone with a seven-inch screen here instead of actually filling up that entire space. Today,

05:04 we're going to do just a brief overview of the infotainment system, but if you do want a detailed

05:08 review of this infotainment system, click up here. So that's what it looks like on the home screen.

05:14 In terms of audio, you have AM/FM/DAB+ digital radio along with smartphone mirroring audio

05:22 sources. A six-speaker sound system comes as standard, but the good news is you have Apple

05:27 CarPlay and Android Auto. Both are wired, so you're going to need a cable to connect to those.

05:31 I'll show you what that looks like. That's Apple CarPlay. It tacks up the entire screen

05:35 fairly quick and easy to use. You can also use the car's voice recognition system without a phone

05:40 paired or by forwarding commands through your smartphone. I'll show you what Android Auto

05:44 looks like. Full screen integration, and that works well also. Nothing to really complain

05:50 about. All pretty straightforward. Now, ahead of the driver is all you have a tiny little screen

05:54 with trip computer, and then on either side of that you have controls that relate to driving,

05:59 which we'll go through when we hit the road, but outside of that, it's a pretty straightforward

06:02 setup. Now, what about safety? Pretty important for a car in this segment. So you have autonomous

06:08 emergency braking with pedestrian detection, works in forwards and reverse. You have blind

06:13 spot monitoring built into that wing mirror, lane keeping assistant, lane departure warning,

06:18 radar cruise control. In addition to all the standard airbags that you have, you also have

06:23 a center airbag that prevents your front passenger and the driver from colliding in an impact.

06:29 Generally, when there's a second vehicle or something else involved, it prevents you from

06:33 knocking heads, which can really just ruin your day further than the accident you've already been

06:37 in. So really good technology, and it's good to see that it's standard here. You also have rear

06:41 cross traffic alert, and let's have a look at the reverse view camera. So 360 degree camera with the

06:47 reverse view there. You can also manually switch between different views. The quality is pretty

06:52 poor, but for the most part, you're going to be able to tell what you're looking at. It's also

06:56 front and rear parking sensors as well. Let's talk connectivity. So we'll get rid of this. You have

07:02 one 2.1 amp charging USB-A port on the left, another USB-A port on the right, 12 volt outlet,

07:10 no wireless charging though. Now, storage. Where are you going to put your phone when you're not

07:14 using it? So it does fit conveniently up the top there. You can slide it in down the front.

07:20 You can use your bottle holders as well, or this little slot up the back. Coffees. Okay,

07:26 you're going to spill your coffee everywhere. No, that fits in really nicely, and the lid is not

07:31 compromised. Bottle storage, same story. The bottle fits in there. It does move around a fair

07:35 bit though without those teeth, but you do have bottle storage inside the door as well if you need

07:41 it. There is no center console, but you have a slot up the back. Then also a glove box that isn't

07:48 really that big. Kind of taken up by papers in the manual. Okay, what about comfort? You have

07:53 single zone automatic climate control, heated seats for the first row, electric seat adjustment

08:00 for the driver. Really interesting controls as well. They're not the standard type you'd expect

08:05 to see on a seat, but cool nevertheless. The seats themselves are really interesting because

08:10 you've got this fascinating design with this sort of stripe that goes down the center,

08:16 and then this, you know those old CRT television units when they lost reception, they go all fuzzy.

08:22 Kind of looks like that. So yeah, I think the design's interesting. It's cool.

08:27 The seats are comfortable, which is great. Steering wheel sits really nicely in your

08:32 hands. There are no paddle shifters, and all of this is easy to reach. We're on the second row

08:37 of the Yaris Cross. Before I get started on the space, I'm not a huge fan of these doors not

08:42 opening any wider than that. It'll make it a little tricky to get baby seats in. So I obviously

08:47 know this isn't a medium-sized SUV that everyone's going to to buy with kids and all that sort of

08:52 stuff, but it will make getting baby seats in a little tricky. Anyway, once you're in here,

08:57 it's got a whole amount of room. So my knees are wedged into that seat. Toe room's okay. Headroom

09:04 is kind of reasonable. This seat's pretty far back, and I am a plus-sized man. It's actually a

09:10 big bone thing rather than eating pies. But anyway, so in terms of other features you have

09:16 back here, ISOFIX on the two outboard seats. Looks like there's no center armrest, but you pull this

09:21 little thing here and you get two cup holders pop down that you can fit a bottle into, and then a

09:27 bottle also fits into the door. There's no air vents down here. Mat pocket only on one side,

09:33 and it is worth pointing out as well that this door is super plasticky. So even the section

09:38 where you're meant to rest your arm, it's just really firm and not very pleasant to rest on.

09:43 Okay, let's talk cargo space. So Yaris standard, Yaris, not the Yaris Cross, doesn't have a huge

09:50 boot. This is slightly different though, because have a look at this. You have 390 litres of cargo

09:55 space available, but the space expands. So this is a dual-tiered floor. I'll show you how that works

09:59 in a second, but beneath here you actually have a space saver spare tyre, and that's despite this

10:05 being the hybrid model. So it's not like it used to be where the entire boot was taken up by

10:09 batteries. So I can slide this down so you get a little bit of extra space, and I'll show you what

10:14 it looks like with the bags in there. Bang, and then bang as well. Actually, nope, gonna have to

10:20 go bang sideways. There it is there, so plenty of room for your bags. You can also expand the space

10:27 by dropping that second row and get rid of this cargo blind. A lot of manufacturers are now moving

10:32 towards these flexible cargo blinds instead of the hard units, so that just folds away nicely.

10:38 And then what you can do is just drop these rear seats. Keep in mind though, because it is a fairly

10:43 compact car, you're first going to have to move the front seats out of the way for them to fold,

10:47 but you can see there if you elevate the floor you can have a flat load space as well.

10:51 So it is a pretty practical small SUV. We've just hit the road in the Yaris Cross. Now, this is a

10:59 hybrid, which means it has an internal combustion engine and also an electric motor with its own

11:03 little battery pack. The internal combustion engine is a 1.5 litre three-cylinder petrol

11:09 engine. It's nice and small. It produces 67 kilowatts of power and 120 newton meters of torque.

11:16 Now, that's an Atkinson cycle engine. If you want to understand a bit more on what that means,

11:21 you can click up here to watch one of our other videos where we go into a bit more detail there,

11:25 but the electric component helps provide a combined power output of 85 kilowatts of power and

11:31 141 newton meters of torque. And it does that when you get hard onto the throttle, it combines the

11:37 internal combustion engine and the hybrid components to give you all of that extra oomph

11:42 in parallel. But for the rest of the part, you actually drive a lot of the time with the internal

11:48 combustion engine off. So right now, I've got the little EV light on, the internal combustion

11:53 engine is off. It's not until I actually hit the throttle that you hear it come on. And it gives

11:58 you all of that detail just ahead of the driver here and also on the head-up display. You can see

12:02 as I roll out of the throttle, it goes into charging mode. And then as long as I stay within

12:06 the eco band, EV stays on. And then if I push harder, the internal combustion engine comes on.

12:11 And that's all mated to a continuously variable transmission. That means it really just has one

12:16 gear. It doesn't step through gears. What does all that feel like? Well, let's give it a little

12:20 kick up here. It's okay. I mean, it doesn't pin you back in the seat, but it does the job.

12:29 That battery pack's only around 0.7 kilowatt hours. So really just there to provide you that

12:34 assistance when you step off or when you get stuck into the throttle. And it is worth pointing out as

12:39 well, I don't want to harp on too much about this hybrid stuff, but a lot of energy is consumed

12:44 moving a car off a standing start. You can imagine like pushing a box on carpet, initially getting

12:49 the box moving on carpet takes a lot of effort, but once it's moving, it comes along nicely.

12:53 Well, it's the same story with a car. The hybrid components help move it off the line to start

12:58 with. And then the internal combustion engine takes over. Now, the big advantage here of all

13:02 these hybrid systems is fuel economy. Toyota claims 3.8 litres per 100 kilometres. Normally

13:07 manufacturers can't really be trusted when it comes to fuel economy. A lot of cars are, I'm

13:11 not going to say built for the fuel cycle test, but they often just are not realistic in real life.

13:17 This on the other hand, it's really surprised me. So if I go down here to the fuel economy,

13:21 4.6 litres per 100 kilometres. We've been giving this a fair old thrashing and that is really

13:29 impressive. It shows you that you can have fun, but not use a huge amount of fuel in the same

13:34 process. So you've got a number of different drive modes to choose from. You select them by

13:39 pushing this button. It goes from normal to eco to power. So eco is just dulling the air conditioning

13:45 and the throttle response. And then power sharpens everything up. It makes the steering heavier,

13:52 makes it more eager to run into the mode where the engine is switched on.

13:55 All right, I've got a couple of corners coming up, but before I do that, I'm just going to give

14:00 it a little bit of a squeeze. See what it feels like once we're moving. Yeah, look, it feels okay.

14:07 Like it's not groundbreaking. And this being the front wheel drive, you only get that assistance

14:13 at the front end. You don't have anything on the rear axle, but it feels really nice behind the

14:17 wheel, even in terms of handling. There's a little bit of body roll, but it holds together really

14:23 nicely. And it's just not too phased when you come into corners. In terms of steering, the

14:28 artificial weight they add in doesn't really help with the handling because there's just no feeling

14:33 to it. You can just feel that they've just made it more resistive. So there isn't a great deal

14:38 of steering feel. But look, for the most part, I don't think anyone's buying this expecting it to

14:42 be like a GR Yaris. So Toyota doesn't quote a zero to 100 time, but we thought we'd put it up

14:47 against our stopwatch anyway. So we're out on the country road at the moment. It's a course chip

15:03 road. It's not the quietest environment in the world. There's a bit of wind noise coming in over

15:07 those wing mirrors, a fair bit of tyre noise as well. So while the platform generally deals really

15:13 well with these things, I think if you are going to be spending a whole lot of time on the freeway,

15:17 it's something worth considering. And that's always why we recommend a 24-hour test drive,

15:21 because you want to be able to drive on roads like this if you do spend a lot of time on them.

15:25 If you don't, it's not the end of the world. But if you are spending a lot of time on highways,

15:29 it is worth putting that into your test drive to make sure that you're not going to get any

15:33 surprises once you finally take delivery of your new wheels. Despite riding on 18-inch alloy wheels,

15:38 the ride is fantastic. So Toyota, certainly their most recent platforms, have really just

15:45 dialed in beautifully to accommodating a ride in and around town, but also out on the freeway as

15:50 well. They've really just rounded everything out nicely. So they haven't gone in too hard on

15:54 sportiness or too hard on softness. It just sits in beautifully in between. It means when you hit

15:58 speed humps and that kind of thing, you're really not going to be thrown around the cabin too much.

16:02 Visibility is really good. So despite its SUV appearance from the outside, I can clearly see

16:08 down the front of the car, the sides are easily visible thanks to those decent wing mirrors with

16:13 blind spot monitoring. And then at the back, it's not too bad. The tops of the headrests on the side

16:19 to rear seats get in the way a little bit, but you can see through the centre of them.

16:23 And in terms of turning circle, 10.6 metres, which is pretty reasonable. It means you won't be doing

16:30 three-point turns every time you want to go for a U-turn. So the Toyota Yaris Cross Urban Hybrid,

16:36 bit of a mouthful, but overall a really fun car to drive. The ride is sensational. It is so

16:41 economical, like you would never visit the fuel station in this. It is really, really economical.

16:46 But what about the negatives? So rear legroom, it is a bit of a joke back there. You really can't

16:51 fit anybody in there. The tech already feels outdated, despite the fact it's brand new.

16:55 That small screen just, I don't know, should just be a bigger screen, and Toyota has bigger screens

17:00 available in the rest of the range. It's also pretty expensive for what it is. The Yaris took

17:04 a big step forward in terms of price, and they built on it with an SUV version of the car that

17:10 was meant to be small and cheap. So anyway, if you put those things to the side, though, it is

17:14 nice and fun to drive. It's got a punchy enough engine, and it handles the city and then the

17:19 country all fine. There is a little bit of that road noise, but in and around the city, speed

17:23 humps, potholes, cobblestones, all that kind of thing, you're not really going to notice them.

17:26 So let me know in the comments section below, what do you think of the Yaris Cross? Overall,

17:30 I'm a big fan of it. So did you buy one? How's it all going? And are you getting the fuel economy

17:35 that we saw on our trip computer here? Let me know in the comments section below. Now, if you did

17:39 enjoy this video, make sure you share it, and don't forget to hit the like button, and subscribe

17:43 to our channel, and watch the rest of our videos, and all that sort of fun stuff. But until next

17:46 time, take it easy.

Category

Transcript

Recommended