So the embargo to write about the 2026 Toyota C-HR happened a couple of days ago, but for whatever reason I didn’t feel an intense need to get a review or anything out to you right away. I think there’s a few reasons why: I didn’t get all that much time in the car for me to really formulate a coherent opinion about it, but more so because I had just written about it’s bZ-family sibling, the 2026 bZ Woodland earlier this week. And that car is really quite similar to the C-HR, enough so that it gave me a realization about something Toyota is doing that feels like an interesting throwback. And I think I’d rather write about that?
The thing I’m talking about is how carmakers used to offer a single model of car in a number of body styles, usually a sedan, coupé, and wagon. Mainstream cars like, say, the Honda Accord came in those three options, for example: two-door coupé, four-door sedan, and four-door wagon. This was a concept that crossed national borders, social classes, everything. You could get a Chevy Caprice Classic in coupé, wagon, and sedan forms, and do basically the same with a Toyota Corolla, though the coupé was really the hatchback version. Still, you get the idea.
So, when I was thinking about these new electric cars from Toyota that are part of the bZ platform, it reminded me of this sort of throwback-feeling idea. The three cars Toyota had to drive and test at this recent event, the bZ, C-HR, and Woodland, I liked to think of in terms of Volkswagen Type 3s:
This seems to be the best way to explain what Toyota seems to be doing to the widest group of people, since the global population is intimately familiar with Volkswagen’s midcentury upmarket rear-engined air-cooled offering. In this analogy, the Woodland is the Squareback (wagon), the bZ is the Notchback (sedan), and the C-HR is the Fastback (a sort of sporty coupé).
And, like the VW Type 3 lineup, the bZ family is all pretty much the same from the B-pillar forward, and mechanically is quite similar across the line as well, with some variations, of course. I don’t know how much Toyota is leaning into this idea, the old-school one-basic-car-in-three-versions idea, but they are at least sharing the bZ name on the bZ Woodland and the bZ itself, though they didn’t do that for the C-HR. So let’s talk about the C-HR a bit.
The C-HR
We’ve had the C-HR before here in the United States as a combustion-engined car, and it still exists globally as a combustion or hybrid vehicle. The name C-HR turns out to not be an initialism for “Cheese – Ham on Rye” as is usually assumed (based on the erroneous belief that Toyota names their cars after common sandwiches) but rather stands for Compact High Rider or Cross Hatch Run–about or Coupe High Rider.
The most notable thing about the C-HR has been that it seems to be the car where Toyota is willing to be the most experimental styling-wise, and they did manage to make something fairly distinctive-looking. Here’s a commercial for the combustion version so you can see what I’m getting at:
I especially like the dramatic two-tone approach they’re using there, and even on this latest battery-electric iteration, you can still option one with a contrasting black roof:
Of course, the only colors are red and three kinds of grays and a black, but I suppose I should be happy red still exists. I think the most notable styling detail of the C-HR is the rear door handle inset into the C-pillar area, and this newest incarnation retains that:
So, the back half of the C-HR is unique, but the front half is basically the same as the bZ and bZ Woodland, really. Toyota is pitching the C-HR as the “sporty” member of the bZ family, mostly, I think, due to its somewhat shorter length and more daring-looking rear. It’s not the fastest, though – the Woodland’s dual motor setup makes 375 combined hp while the different dual-motor system of the C-HR makes 338 hp, but it’s still good enough to get it from 0 to 60 in under five seconds, and if you need something quicker than that I may ask why you’re looking at this car, but in a concerned and supportive way. Not judgmental. You probably have your reasons.
Oh it weighs between 4,322 and 4,366 pounds, so like almost all EVs, it’s a bit of a chonker. Luckily, most of that weight is down low, in the battery pack.
So, it’s quick, sure, but I’m not sure I’d think of it as sporty, as such. It drives a lot like most EVs, which is to say fast and easy. It doesn’t feel all that different than the Woodland did, and while it’s certainly comfortable and would be an easy car to live with, driving-wise, I didn’t find it to be engaging. Again, it’s fine, and for most people it’ll be exactly what they want, but I’d take Toyota’s posturing of this car as something sporty with a grain of salt. Maybe two.
Interior-wise and equipment-wise we’re once again reminded that this is basically the same car as the Woodland. It has the stuff most people want: lane keeping, dynamic cruise, CarPlay/Android auto, one of those handy center-screen camera views that looks like a drone is videoing you from above, all that, but I feel like I just covered all this ground a couple of days ago with the Woodland. So feel free to go back and read that again, if you like?
I will mention two things again, because I think they bear repeating: the bZ line does include a decent number of physical controls for things like HVAC temperature and volume, so I applaud that, but I disapplaud the lack of a glovebox, which just feels lazy to me:
Oh, and since I’m griping about the lack of storage spaces to stash stuff, I’m going to note again that the bZ platforms offer no frunk, and I feel that’s ethically wrong:
Even though this is the smallest of the bZians, there’s still a decent amount of cargo room in the back:
It’s less than the other two, but for most people’s normal usage? It seems like plenty. Fold the seats down, and you can haul a good bit of stuff back there. Keep the tailgate open and I’m sure you could carry a lawnmower or something, but it’ll likely play havoc on your range.
Let’s Just Get Some Numbers Out Of The Way
Okay, we’ve established this is very much like the other bZ siblings, and that means it’s a capable, comfortable EV with Toyota quality. It doesn’t charge the fastest of all the EVs out there, but I’m sure it would be more than fine for most people’s daily use. I can’t pretend to be excited about it, but I can honestly say it’s worth cross-shopping against many other EVs, like a Tesla Model Y or a Kia EV6.
These start at $38,450, which really isn’t cheap, but it’s on par with most of its competition. Higher specs get into the mid $40s. The base model on 18″ wheels gets an estimated EPA range of 287 miles, and the 20″ wheels on the XSE drop that to 273 miles. It’ll charge via a Tesla Supercharger-compatible NACS port at a maximum of 150 kW – not that quickly by today’s hopeful standards – but Toyota says you can go from 10% to 80% in 30 minutes.
All of this (well, except the price) is the about the same as the bZ Woodland.
I feel like such a jerk, because I just can’t make myself really care about this car! What’s the matter with me? Have I become so miserably cynical? Or maybe I’m just still hoping there will be some EV options that are decent cars that don’t start at almost $40,000. I’m tired of all these similar EVs that drive almost the same and feel the same. Yes, there’s some good styling going on here, but I think the Kia EV6 looks better and, more importantly, I just want to see some company actually try to make a decent $25,000 EV.
Couldn’t this have been that car? There’s plenty of corners that could have been cut here, and still have been plenty appealing to people. I’m bitter. It’s fine, the C-HR is fine, if you get one I’m sure you’ll be happy enough. Maybe I’m just tired.
If it helps, I still like how Toyota brought back the one car with three variations thing; that has to count for something, right?
The VW Fastback and Saloon, of course, didn’t have a hatch though, IIRC, which means it is far more differentiated from the Squareback than these two are.
These are more like the lazily badge-enginered GM A-platform cars where some of them had slightly different rear window treatments eventually.
Also, on the subject of car color – my best friend just bought a house down the road a piece from me. Getting to his place means driving past the GINORMOUS local KIA store (the one where they make the salesdroids wait in a tent outside, in Florida), and I have done it about 6 times over the last few days helping to get him settled. With the current slowdown in car sales their gazillion acre lot is absolutely chock-a-block full of cars like never before. And they are nearly universally sad shades of gray, black and white, with just the occasional meek blue or sad red one peeking through the gloom. I can’t be the only person who longs for the days that car lots looked like a spilled bag of Skittles, can I?
Another Muppets reference!!
Is the lack of glovebox due to the radiant heating in the Lexus sister ship? The lack of a frunk can be fixed via RubberMaid.
The Subarus have the radiant heater in top trims as well, I believe. It’s odd they didn’t make it a module though that was either a glovebox or the heater.
CH-R was the shortest test drive of my life….out one driveway of the dealer, back in the next. Dealer riding shotgun (apparently no one is to be trusted on a test drive anymore) asked if something is wrong. I said no per se…..but it had the worst rear visibility of any car I had driven, which includes the late-aught Mustang convertible which gives you the ability to see approximately a football (not field, a football) of visibility in your rear 150 degrees. CH-R was worse than that.
All that to say…..can you see out of them now?
Redline said the visibility was pretty decent even without the 360 cameras.
With the rear seats up the CH-R manages a whole four more cu.ft. of cargo space than my S5. With all that room, who needs a glovebox?
I just call it the Toyota CHaiR.
Which isn’t wrong… there’s four of them in there.
The pre-facelift version (2025 MY) is one of the worst new cars I’ve ever driven. Hate the drivetrain, but that’s no new topic. But the build quality…wtf. Brand new from the dealer. There was a 1cm gap between the door and the door trim. Easy to see through and to look at all the mechanical parts within the door. On the other door, it was better.
But everything was rattling and simply cheap.
And I hate the drivetrain. Did I already mention that?
Yeah it was not great. I rode in a CH-R one for a 40 mile uber ride. Because of the window shape, I could hardly see out the sides. I was surrounded by cheap rattling plastic. The engine sound was loud but uninspiring.
Yeah, the view especially to the rear is quite bad. In general, not a very practical car, especially considering it’s size (well okay, for Americans it might be small…)
Somehow it combines the road manners of an SUV with the practicality of a coupe. It’s basically an Isuzu Vehicross.
“C-HR” = “See HR” = “Oh shit, what did I do?”
My work history in a nutshell.
I wish we didn’t have to suffer through this generation of designers raised on Voltron.
“I just want to see some company actually try to make a decent $25,000 EV” That’s called a used car. This isn’t 1980, you can’t go see Shirley Temple perform for a nickel.
Agreed. Companies can barely make a decent combustion car for $25,000. Barring some gigantic breakthrough that drastically reduces battery cost, an electric car at that price is a pipe dream. At least one that isn’t horribly compromised in some way.
EVs being less complicated means they’ll be cheaper than combustion pretty soon, but inflation might come for that $25k price with all the other bits beside the drivetrain?
Less complicated is oversimplifying things a bit. Yes there are fewer moving parts, but modem batteries and electric systems are quite complicated and are not cheap to manufacture. We’re not talking about energizers here. Material cost is also significant (lithium is more expensive than aluminum or iron by at least an order of magnitude).
Electrics used to be very niche, and this added to cost because development cost was spread between fewer vehicles, but that is no longer the case. Tesla is selling hundreds of thousands of vehicles every year now, so I don’t think economies of scale are going to reduce prices much more than they have to this point.
Basically, without some sort of cost savings in battery production (material or manufacturing cost) electrics are about as cheap as they’re going to get without sacrificing range or severely impacting quality. They could make a $25k electric, just like they could make a $15k combustion car, but it would be a shit-box and almost no one would buy it. Notice how all of the really cheap cars have gone away in the US market? The versa was the last sub 20k car and it’s been discontinued.
People say they want a 25k electric car, but what most of them really want is a 35k electric car but only want to pay 25k for it.
I used to work in vehicle battery research, so I know it’s a lot of stuff going on, but it’s a lot fewer parts and less labor than you’d get putting an engine together.
I’ve built EV packs and rebuilt gas engines, and I’d much rather do the pack, even if you do need to be a bit more careful to not zap yourself.
LFP is pretty cheap, basically bulletproof, and good enough for most vehicles. It’s a shame we sold off A123 so we have to license it back for US production though.
Guess we’ll see what happens with Slate and if they can hit their entry level price point. Most people will probably end up optioning it up to $35k though. I think most people want a $35k car they only have to pay $25k for, regardless of drivetrain!
I don’t think the EV6 looks better than this at all. The EV6 has the ugliest rear-end I have ever seen! That said, the EV6’s platform mate, the Ioniq 5, looks wayyyy better than this rather anonymous looking blob with edges.
Honestly the lack of a glovebox would be a dealbreaker to me. The whole interior looks lazy – glued-on iPad, driver’s display obscured by the steering wheel, etc. Lazy is an understatement!
Why would they get rid of the glovebox? Like, wtf? That would bug me so much every time I got in the car that I would never consider buying a car without one. I mean, I like to have a place to stash napkins, maybe a pen, a tire gauge, and my car registration isn’t going digital anytime soon. What a miserable way to save a few bucks per car.
It’s to make room for radiant knee warmers in some of the trims/models, but it’s weird they don’t just stick one in the vehicles that don’t option it.
I think the styling actually works ok on this one, as opposed to the aggressively cheap/plain bZ stablemates.
I’ve been a passenger in the previous iteration – boy is it cramped and dark in there. Seems like a bad use of space.
>The base model on 18″ wheels gets an estimated EPA range of 287 miles, and the 20″ wheels on the XSE drop that to 273 miles.
Big wheels = Premium feels even more stupid than it already did in the EV era.
I’ll happily pay a 14 mile penalty to not have a car riding on shopping cart wheels.
Neither of these range numbers are really enough for the price, anyway.
EV manufacturers really need to stop gatekeeping more range behind poverty-spec trim levels. No one wants an EV that rides worse and has less range just so they can get wheels that arguably might look a bit nicer.
However yeah, range is just not good enough compared to other competition in this segment.
The Bolt, Leaf, and Niro/Kona all are pretty similar range numbers. The Uncharted FWD variant of this is over 300 mi which matches the Leaf’s longest range trim too.
18″ wheels are shopping cart wheels?
What have you youngsters been smoking. The ’72 Ford pick-up I drove in high school only had 16″ shoes.
And those would have been pretty big!
Also helped that they had plenty of sidewall on the tires themselves.
Yeah, but everyone needs huge wheels to clear 17″ brake discs to handle the repeated 120 mph hard braking events they undertake whenever they drive through town or sit in highway traffic. Then they buy taller vehicles with AWD they “need” to contend with the bad roads, but the rubber band tires can’t take a pot hole or minor curb strike without damage that probably isn’t even confined to the tire, never mind that these stupidly tall vehicles need stiffer suspension to reduce rollover risk because the morons who buy them insist on being able to drive them like sports cars and you have more fragile, more expensive, overweight daily drivers cosplaying as rugged that ride worse than my actual sports car that can also sustain pothole strikes without issue.
And I’m sure they looked proportional to your truck in ’72.
It’s not really about the size, it’s the design of the car around it.
When a car is designed around fitting 20 inch wheels, 18 inches generally looks inadequate.
There are plenty of design reasons why wheel sizes have grown over the years, notably safety regulations rising beltlines.
if you’re buying this car, you already don’t care about design. So, you might as well get the best range possible
Haha, I see it the other way – it needs all the help it can get…
I can’t argue with the logic despite not agreeing with it lol
Drive a ’70s land barge on 14’s sometime…
I’d be interested to know whether the 20s hold up longer than the 18s. The tire budget for the i3 has been an eye opener.
I’m not big into the aesthetics or dynamics of 20″ + wheels. My ’17 Accord has 17s and they fill the wheel wells satisfactorily.
Wasn’t that the concept for the EV Skateboard platform? One basic platform and put everything on it.
To be honest, I didn’t even notice that the Woodland was a wagon. I just assumed it was a “Wilderness” edition of the bZ and moved on. Going to go back and read that article now.
I think it was only quickly mentioned in that article because it came up when discussing the Subaru version. But yeah, it took me a few minutes to remember that was a thing they were doing. And honestly I was surprised that the Wilderness review didn’t spend more time on it, because I thought there would be strong opinions on the more squared off rear end.
Holding out for the 2dr pickup “El Camino” version
Don’t worry Torch, the C-HR (Compact-High Roof ?) has always been an uninspiring vehicle. Not even a C-pillar mounted door handle can make up for the lack of frunk, and glove box!
They don’t care because they don’t have to.
“Decent” and “$25,000” just isn’t really possible anymore, and we need to move on.
There are some decent ICE vehicles for under $25k, decent being perfectly reliable transportation from A-B
Exactly. $25k isn’t what it used to be.
Now I want a VW type 3 even more. Was that the goal of this? If so, well done. I’ll take a wagon.