As a hybrid but also as a plug-in hybrid
The current Toyota C-HR came on the market six years ago. For a Toyota, the model already has a long life cycle, but its successor is becoming more and more concrete. This C-HR Prologue gives about 80 percent the look of the second generation price that we expect in a year. The design is even bolder. Just to spoil the reveal party a bit: this fall we had all these leaked patent plates showing the second-generation C-HR as a production model. On a technical level, the new Toyota C-HR is improving. It will be available as a hybrid but also as a plug-in hybrid.
- Presage new Toyota C-HR
- Also as a plug-in hybrid
- Even more expressive design than current ones
- Unveiled as a production version at the end of 2023
Six years ago, the Toyota C-HR paved the way for a new crop of Toyotas. Like the previous Prius, it stood on the then new TNGA platform with which the brand took major steps in terms of driving dynamics, but the C-segment crossover hit like a bomb with its lines. You find a C-HR either beautiful or ugly. There is no in-between. The public has now been able to get used to such an expressive Toyota for six years, which is why the design team in the European Toyota ED² design studio near Nice dares to go a step further with the next C-HR. The C-HR Prologue clearly shows that. It is a concept car that already reveals all of the new design.
Toyota C-HR Prologue, which also has some traits of the Aygo X.
The wheels are placed even further on the corners, and the sharp angle of the rear doors is striking in profile, which is reminiscent of the design language of the Aygo X. In terms of design, you can see it as the big brother of that new high-profile A segmenter. Characteristic of the new Toyota noses is what Toyota calls the ‘hammerhead’. A strip divides the headlights into angular LED strips and from above it looks a bit like how you see the head of a hammerhead shark from above.
Toyota C-HR with the ‘Hammerhead’, the new Prius has it, the new electric bZ range has it too.
Nice stance for new C-HR
The sloping roofline returns, although the new C-HR is higher and wider than the current one. The latter in turn provides what designers call a nice stance, so how the car stands on its wheels, especially because the model is also shorter (2 centimeters), the second generation gets a stocky appearance. Of course this is still a concept and you have to think of normal exterior mirrors instead of the rectangles that are now on it, which are supposed to suggest cameras. We will most likely not see the door handles in the front doors on the production version either. When it comes? Count on the performance at the end of 2023, based on the time taken by Toyota to present the Aygo X Prologue in March 2021 and the launch of the Aygo X production. That ‘Prologue’ also looked just a little more extreme than the ultimately still remarkably stylized showroom version.
The Toyota C-HR Prologue is 2 centimeters shorter than the current C-HR, but whether that also applies to the production version remains to be seen.
Also plug-in hybrid C-HR
At the unveiling of the concept car, we were only able to take a look at the outside. There was no interior yet. However, Toyota does price that a plug-in hybrid will appear in addition to the hybrid. The fifth generation hybrid powertrain that has already been presented in the Corolla Cross and which is also in the Corolla of model year 2023, passes the nose of the current C-HR. The new one gets the more powerful 1.8 and 2.0 Hybrid, of course. And then there is the recently presented Prius Plug-in Hybrid. It has the powerful 223 hp plug-in hybrid powertrain, coupled to a 13.6 kWh battery pack and is on the same platform. The Prius will get you 69 miles on a battery charge according to Toyota, the C-HR (assuming it gets the same package) probably won’t make it due to its height. But in terms of powertrain, the new C-HR is certainly improving.
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– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl