The pioneering Toyota C-HR will achieve yet another breakthrough by reaching the milestone of one million European sales by the end of the year, highlighting its position as a best seller and brand icon for Toyota across the continent.
Launched in 2016, the Toyota C-HR is a landmark model for Toyota, bringing the brand to a new style-conscious audience thanks to its unconventional design, fun-to-drive character and premium quality. It set a new styling benchmark in the European C-SUV segment with its bold, sharp-edged design reminiscent of a sports coupe’s dynamic lines.
Its distinctive appearance helped to positively transform perceptions of Toyota in Europe, bringing a strong emotional boost to the brand. Customers responded positively with more than half citing the car’s styling as their principal reason for purchase, contributing to the Toyota C-HR becoming Toyota’s best-performing model in attracting new customers to the brand for the first time.
Through its two generations, the Toyota C-HR has maintained its strong sales performance and is one of Toyota’s most popular products, continuing to attract new customers. Meanwhile the new Toyota C-HR PHEV contributed significantly to the brand’s 93% year-on-year increase in Plug-in Hybrid sales.
Strengthening its connection to European customers, the second-generation Toyota C-HR benefits from local design, engineering and production, with Toyota’s engineers and designers at its Technical Centre in Zaventem, near Brussels, exploiting innovative developments, including real-time data from drivers across the continent.
The Toyota C-HR’s iconic coupe silhouette has always stood out from the crowd and its second generation further emphasises that bold look through a wider, more confident stance, enhanced by sharp character lines and sophisticated design execution. True to the vision of a ‘concept car for the road’, the new Toyota C-HR offers premium features such as flush door handles, dynamic 64-colour interior ambient lighting and a shade-less panoramic roof as part of a personalised user experience which puts the customer at the heart of the vehicle.
The latest Toyota C-HR line-up includes a PHEV – the Plug-in Hybrid 220 – for the first time, with an EV range to match modern European customer needs and habits. It delivers the effortless, smooth driving of a true electric vehicle with a range of up to 66 km (WLTP combined), and when used exclusively on city or urban streets, it achieves an equivalent all-electric range of around 100 km (WTLP EAER City) depending on exact specifications. Expressing a dual DNA, the Plug-in Hybrid 220 switches automatically to hybrid mode when the battery is depleted, giving drivers the reassurance and flexibility of Toyota’s class-leading hybrid technology and ensuring continuous efficiency on every journey.
In keeping with its local focus – and in a Toyota first – the PHEV batteries are manufactured in Europe, at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Turkey (TMMT), the Sakarya plant which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
Alongside the Plug-in Hybrid 220, three hybrid electric powertrains are also based on Toyota’s latest, fifth-generation hybrid technology, emphasising Toyota’s inclusive multi-technology path to carbon neutrality. The Hybrid 140 has a 1.8 litre engine and 140 DIN hp while, for customers wanting an even more engaging driving experience, the Hybrid 200 combines power and efficiency from a 2.0-litre engine with 197 DIN hp and 190Nm torque. The Hybrid 200 AWD-i option adds true all-wheel-drive confidence and safety. As well as more power and torque, it provides better traction and stability, more precise cornering, and greater confidence on a range of road conditions.
The new Toyota C-HR builds on the engaging handling of the original, and there is no compromise on driving dynamics thanks to updated Toyota New Generation Architecture (TNGA) which delivers higher torsional rigidity and reduced vehicle mass. Highly developed aerodynamics deliver a drag co-efficient of 0.318, achieved through reduced frontal area and an extensive refinement of the body shape, including the underbody, to optimise air flow. For the first time on a Toyota vehicle worldwide, the Plug-in Hybrid 220 and GR SPORT models feature ZF frequency sensitive control (FSC) technology to enhance handling and ride comfort.
Beyond its class-leading efficiency on the road, the new Toyota C-HR further reduces its environmental impact through the introduction of new recycled materials, as well as advanced technologies to reduce vehicle weight and cut CO2 emissions during production.
SOURCE: Toyota
