New Toyota C-HR caught: also electric?

Toyota came up with the current generation C-HR in 2016, which symbolized a turnaround in Toyota’s model strategy. With the extravagant crossover, Toyota made it clear that it would focus more on more exciting-looking designs in the future. The calendar is now up and the C-HR is about eight years old. There’s a completely new C-HR in the pipeline and it looks like we can already show you that new Toyota C-HR.

Toyota C-HR Prologue (Concept, 2021).

That a new C-HR is coming is of course no surprise. Compact crossovers and SUV-types still attract many customers to the showrooms, so as a car manufacturer you cannot have enough of them in your range. The C-HR recently received the Corolla Cross as a more down-to-earth and practical alternative, which means that the new second-generation Toyota C-HR can again become a stubborn rascal in terms of design. In December, Toyota already showed a preview of the new C-HR with the C-HR Prologue. What exactly will the new C-HR look like? That’s not really a surprise anymore. Two months before Toyota presented the C-HR Prologue, AutoWeek could already show you the production version on patent drawings. Now two test examples of the new C-HR have also appeared in public.

The snapped test cars appear to be the new Toyota C-HR.

The packed Toyota in these photos clearly shows similarities with the C-HR Prologue and therefore also with the model on the aforementioned patent plates. We see a car with a steeply sloping roofline, a high nose with mainly taped C-shaped headlights and a rear with lighting in a tight horizontal stripe and a spoiler above a relatively flat rear window. Through the sticker work, the folds on the sides are already partly visible and the wavy shoulder line and the elevation at the front screens are also visible. All things that you saw on both the C-HR Prologue and the car on the patent drawings. One of the test examples also has the grille you saw on the patent plates. Striking: the snapped Topyota has recessed handles in the front and rear doors, just like the C-HR on the patent drawings. The C-HR Prologue just didn’t have that.

Also electric?

Will the new Toyota C-HR also come with a fully electric powertrain? That’s just the question, but nothing is impossible. In any case, it will have a plug-in hybrid powertrain and will also be available internationally with a hybrid powertrain without a plug. The new Toyota C-HR is likely to be on the new E3 platform, a foundation that combines parts of the TNGA platform family with those of the electric e-TNGA range. This means that the basis of the new C-HR is theoretically also suitable for a fully electric powertrain.

Toyota bZ Compact SUV, a harbinger of probably the bZ3X. Larger than the C-HR.

Toyota has not yet confirmed the arrival of an electric C-HR. The Japanese do come with the bZ3X, an electric little brother of the bZ4X, of which there are no versions with combustion engines. After all, that is a model of the bZ family under which Toyota only hangs fully developed EV models. It is therefore not inconceivable that it will eventually come with an electric C-HR.

Small SU EV Concept (2021): early version C-HR Prologue or smaller separate electric model?

That suspicion is reinforced by an older study model from Toyota: the Small SU EV Concept. At the end of 2021, it pulled together with Lexus to buy a can of concept cars. One of these was the Small SU EV Concept, a small electric crossover that, unlike other electric study models presented at the same time, did not have a bZ name. This therefore suggests that Toyota will indeed come up with electric variants of cars that are also available with combustion engines. In addition, the Small SU EV Concept mentioned shows quite a few external similarities with the C-HR Prologue and therefore with the new Toyota C-HR. The C-HR Prologue therefore seemed to be a design-technical further development of the Small SU EV Concept.

Another option is that the Small SU EV Concept becomes a slightly smaller C-HR-like with an electric powertrain, a kind of bZ2X for next to the Toyota Yaris Cross. If that were the case, it would be very busy in Toyota’s SUV range.