Namesake
The Toyota Yaris Cross is only three years old, but Toyota is already presenting a completely new one. However, the new Toyota Yaris Cross that plays the leading role in this article will not replace the well-known crossover. What’s up with that?
About three years ago, Europe completed its European delivery range with the Yaris Cross. That compact crossover shares its variant of Toyota’s modular TNGA platform with the Yaris and is certainly not old-fashioned. Yet there is already a completely new Toyota Yaris Cross, but besides its name it has almost literally nothing to do with the model of the same name that you can buy in the Netherlands.
The Toyota Yaris Cross that has just been unveiled is yet another fruit of the close collaboration between Toyota and its subsidiary Daihatsu. It is therefore on the DNGA-B platform, the variant of the Daihatsu New Global Architecture platform that is also found under cars such as the Toyota Yaris Ativ and the Daihatsu Xenia, Toyota Avanza, Veloz and Perodua Alza quads. The compact crossover presented by Toyota Astra Motor – the Indonesian branch of Toyota – is 4.31 meters long and is therefore about 10 centimeters longer than ‘our’ Yaris Cross. The wheelbase of the Yaris Cross, intended for markets in East Asia, is 2.62 meters, exceeding that of the European Yaris Cross by 6 centimeters. This makes this new Yaris Cross a little bigger than the model that has been on sale in Europe for about three years.
This Yaris Cross also shows similarities with the RAV4 at the rear.
Depending on the country where it will be sold, the Toyota Yaris Cross will be available with a 106 hp 1.5 and with a 91 hp 1.5 that works in a hybrid powertrain with an 80 hp electric motor. The system power: 111 hp. The battery of the hybrid Yaris Cross has a capacity of 0.7 kWh. Remarkably enough, the 1.5s mentioned are completely different 1.5s than those you will find in Europe, whether or not hybrid Toyotas. They are not a three-cylinder, but a four-cylinder.
Also in terms of design, this Yaris Cross differs from the model of the same name that populates European showrooms. To put it somewhat exaggeratedly, this new model looks like a shrunken version of the Toyota RAV4.
You can already feel it coming: this Toyota Yaris Cross is not coming to Europe. Do you think this Yaris Cross looks better than the model you can buy here? Why or why not?
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl