Toyota Urban Cruiser review

How good is the Suzuki eVitara in reality? Its Toyota twin has the answer

Find Toyota Urban Cruiser deals
Other Services
Sell your car
84% get more money with

It’s not déjà vu – it’s the new Toyota Urban Cruiser. If this smaller sibling of the bZ4X looks familiar, it’s because we recently drove the Suzuki eVitara, which is essentially the same car.

Toyota and Suzuki are all in on the not-so-noble art of badge engineering. It’s been a few years since Suzuki started selling the Corolla estate and RAV4 as the Swace and Across, so now it’s Suzuki’s turn to return the favour.

The name Urban Cruiser itself might ring a bell. Back in 2008, Toyota applied it to an uninspiring, taller version of the Yaris. In a way, it was ahead of its time, because B-segment crossovers (like the Yaris Cross) are now wildly popular, yet it failed to leave much of a mark. Toyota will be hoping this new electric one can do better.

Advertisement

DESIGN & STYLING

Most of the development work for the Japanese firms’ answer to the Kia EV3, Skoda Elroq and Renault Megane was done by Suzuki, with a bit of collaboration between the two on the base platform.

Mechanically, there are no differences at all, although the Urban Cruiser does get a slightly different face that has a bit of Toyota’s ‘Hammerhead’ signature and some different materials inside.

In short, there are two batteries, both with lithium-iron-phosphate chemistry – one is 49kWh (47.8kWh usable), the other 61kWh (59.8kWh usable) – and they come with either a single front motor or a motor on each axle.

However, the four-wheel-drive car won’t initially be offered in the UK and it’s unlikely that the small-battery car will make much of a ripple in the sales statistics.

INTERIOR

On the inside, the Urban Cruiser is – you’ve guessed it – awfully similar to the eVitara, although there are a few minor differences.

The colour scheme is always grey and black, because the Suzuki’s brown dashboard was just too exciting. What is quite good is that all the surfaces that are gloss black (and therefore very sensitive to scratches and fingerprints) in the Suzuki are a less high-maintenance but no more expensive-feeling satin grey in the Toyota.

The rest of it feels slightly phoned in. The sliding rear bench gives you competitive rear seat space or boot space but not both. The infotainment, which is unique to the Urban Cruiser and eVitara, is incredibly slow, which will become painfully evident when you try to disable the various ADAS – and you will want to, for reasons we will come to shortly.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

With 172bhp in the single-motor car and 181bhp in the dual-motor one, the Urban Cruiser is usefully brisk for a mass-market electric crossover. We've not yet driven the entry-level version with 142bhp.

Both the accelerator and by-wire brake pedals are nicely progressive, and there are three levels of off-throttle regenerative braking available, although these don’t work quite the way you would expect. You pick your level of regen in a settings menu and then you can toggle between that and free-wheeling using a button in the centre console. There is no one-pedal mode, however.

RIDE & HANDLING

So what can we learn in Madrid that we couldn’t from a drive of the Suzuki at a British proving ground? Well, actual roads with actual traffic do give a better idea of how well it performs in the real world.

To drive, it’s actually quite nice. Enough grip and well-weighted steering make it enjoyable to navigate both twisty roads and urban environments. Meanwhile, the suspension is neither especially firm nor particularly soft, but it’s well-damped, so it strikes a nice balance. There is quite a bit of wind noise on the motorway, though. The seats are quite narrow but actually have plenty of adjustment.

The ADAS are a problem, though. The lane keeping assistance is quite aggressive, the overspeed warning is typically annoying and while the driver monitoring system was okay for me, it didn’t seem to like my co-driver’s face (I can confirm that he wasn’t distracted). And turning them all off via a touchscreen that seems to have the processing power of a Nokia 3210 gets old very quickly.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

toyota urban cruiser front quarter

Range, efficiency and charging all seem a little previous-generation too: the long-range Urban Cruiser is only about on the level of the standard-range versions of the Elroq and EV3.

The official mpkWh figures are fine if unremarkable, but in practice it seemed to be in the mid-threes in perfect conditions.

Toyota and Suzuki warranty the battery for 70% of its capacity for 10 years or 600,000 miles, so long as the car goes in for a service at a dealer every year. With most manufacturers, it’s eight years and far fewer miles.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

A rapid-charging speed of 80kW for the standard-range car and 125kW for the long-range car are off the pace too, as is Toyota’s predicted 10-80% time of 45 minutes.

UK prices haven’t been published yet, but the standard-range car will cost €33k (£28k) in the Netherlands and the long-range car €36k (£30k), which is cheaper than the EV3.

VERDICT

It remains to be seen whether those prices will be mirrored in the UK. Even if they are, the Urban Cruiser won’t be spectacularly cheap.

Even though this new Urban Cruiser shares nothing with the one from 15 years ago, it feels destined to be similarly insignificant. Wading into battle with a cheap-feeling and not especially roomy interior, dated infotainment and middling EV credentials, it will face an uphill battle that it can’t win by just being quite nice to drive.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As a road tester, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews and comparison tests, while also managing the magazine’s Drives section. Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s in-depth instrumented road tests.

He loves cars that are fun and usable on the road – whether piston-powered or electric – or just cars that are very fit for purpose. When not in test cars, he drives an R53-generation Mini Cooper S.