We get press releases almost every day at DriveLife, for some new model or for an update of an existing model. So it may come as a surprise that I still remember seeing the teaser images for the C-HR, back in 2017.
That’s because of the design; it blew me away that Toyota – who at the time were being panned for producing boring-looking cars – could launch such a futuristic and space-age compact SUV.
That was 7 years ago, and this year saw a refresh of the design, along with other updates and changes. It still looks good! And potentially this is one reason the C-HR sells – on its looks alone (although there’s not denying being a Toyota helps plenty).
While we might think that the ‘GR’ model will be a rip-roaring track car, the only performance change in the C-HR GR Sport Hybrid is a move to a 2.0-litre engine, instead of the standard 1.8-litre engine, but this does give it a good power incresde, from 103kW to 145kW.
What We Like and Dislike About The 2024 Toyota C-HR GR Sport Hybrid
| What we like | What we don’t like |
| Design Overall refinement Driver assist systems are not annoying Full safety suite Front seats Heads-up display Good performance when needed Steering One-button adaptive cruise control | Dark inside A little claustrophobic in rear CVT flaring No rear window wiper Price for size of car Lots of revs when going downhill |
What’s In The 2024 Toyota C-HR Range?
There are six models in the 2024 C-HR range, although for some reason Toyota has decided that if it has a two-tone paint scheme, that’s a model in its own right.
- C-HR GX Hybrid – $45,990
- C-HR GXL Hybrid $49,990
- C-HR Limited Hybrid $52,990
- C-HR Limited Hybrid with Two Tone Plus Paint $53,990
- C-HR GR Sport Hybrid (E-Four AWD) $55,990
- C-HR GR Sport Hybrid (E-Four AWD) with Two Tone Plus Paint $56,990
You can guess that hybrid is standard across the range, with all the front-wheel drive models having a 1.8-litre, 4-cylinder petrol engine that puts out 72kW of power and 142Nm of torque and is fitted with Toyota’s Electronically-controlled Continuously Variable Transmission. Total power output with the hybrid system is 103kW. This model is rated to use fuel at 4.4L/100km. This new engine has around 15% more power than the previous generation of C-HR.
If you buy an all-wheel drive (AWD) version of the C-HR, the engine will be a 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder petrol engine with hybrid assist with the same Electronically-controlled Continuously Variable Transmission. This engine manages 112kW of power and 190Nm of torque, with a combined 145kW of power with the hybrid system. Fuel economy for the 2.0-litre is 4.5L/100km.
A new iteration of Toyota Safety Sense is included. The updated system adds motorcycle detection to the pre-collision system as well as a driver monitor camera. Automatic High Beam is present on the GX, upgrading to Adaptive High-beam System for all other grades. Toyota Teammate (Advanced Park), Panoramic View Monitor, and Parking Support Brake with Rear-Cross Traffic Auto Braking are included on all grades. A blind spot monitor with safe exit assist is also added as an active safety feature.
2024 Toyota C-HR Colour Range
For the front-wheel drive C-HR models, there’s a somewhat confusing range of colours, depending on which FWD model you want to buy. Check out www.toyota.co.nz for the details and options.
For the AWD range, the non-two-tone-plus model has just four colours available, all pretty subdued:
- Frosted White
- Graphite
- Tensile Silver
- Ink
The “Two Tone Plus” models have a bit of a brighter palette to choose from. Well, one brighter colour at least:
- Ebony/Silver Rush
- Ebony/Emotional Red (our test car)
- Ebony/Ash Grey
- Ebony/Frosted White
For a full list of specs and options available for the 2024 Toyota C-HR GR Sport Hybrid head on over to Toyota New Zealand’s website.
How Does The 2024 Toyota C-HR GR Sport Hybrid Compare To Its Competition?
We’ve stuck to hybrids in this table, just so it’s apples vs. apples. Non-hybrid models will always be cheaper.
| Make/ Model | Engine | Power/ Torque kW/Nm | Seats | Fuel L/100km | Boot Space litres | Price |
| C-HR GR Sport Hybrid (E-Four AWD) with Two Tone Plus Paint | 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder petrol/hybrid | 145/190 | 5 | 4.5 | 422 | $56,990 |
| Nissan Qashqai Ti-L e-Power (AWD) | 1.5-litre, 3-cylinder petrol-hybrid | 140/330 | 5 | 5.8 | 452 | $56,990 |
| Hyundai Kona Active Hybrid | 1.6-litre 4-cylinder petrol hybrid | 104/265 | 5 | 4.3 | 407 | $52,990 |
| Subaru Crosstrek Premium e-Boxer Hybrid | 2.0-litre 4-boxer cylinder petrol hybrid | 110/196 | 5 | 6.5 | 315 | $51,990 |
| Kia Niro HEV Earth + | 1.6-litre, 4-cylinder petrol-hybrid | 104/265 | 5 | 4.4 | 451 | $49,990 |
| Ford Puma ST | 1.0-litre, 3-cylinder, turbocharged petrol, mild hybrid | 125/248 | 5 | 5.7 | 456 | $47,990 |
| Honda HR-V Sport | 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder petrol- hybrid | 96/253 | 5 | 4.3 | 319 | $45,800 |
| Haval Jolion Ultra Hybrid | 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol hybrid | 139/375 | 5 | 5.1 | 255 | $40,990 |
Please note that DriveLife does its best to ensure the information above is correct at the time of publication, however, prices, specifications and models can change over time. Please bear that in mind when comparing models in the comparison table.
First Impressions Of The 2024 Toyota C-HR GR Sport Hybrid
The C-HR is so distinctive, it’s easy to pick one out on the road. This year sees quite a few changes in the design and look of the “Euro-styled” C-HR, and those changes have really modernised it. The front end in particular looks superb, with its funky headlights and stylish lines.
Gone are the different door handles for the rear doors; now all the handles are the same, and are (manual) pop-out handles, very 2024. They work well, and good on Toyota for putting a little indentation at the point where you need to press to make the handle pop-out. Some brands don’t do this, leaving passengers confused on where to press.
I love what Toyota has done with the rear of the car, mainly because of the full-width, illuminated panel – which actually forms the rear spoiler as well. The illuminated part is “Toyota C-HR”, which looks great at night.
What’s The Interior Like In The 2024 Toyota C-HR GR Sport Hybrid?
It’s the small and chunky leather steering wheel that grabs your attention first. It feels fantastic to hold, and is just the right size. The GR badge on it makes you feel like you are driving something special, as does the red and grey stitching.
But sitting in the new C-HR, the all-black interior makes it feel so small. This is really compounded in the back seat, with those doors that cut into the natural light entering the cabin making it feel very claustrophobic back there. Probably not the place to put people who get car sick. I did find that coming back to the car after it had been parked for a while that the heat build-up inside was intense, so much so that I’d need to lower all the windows to let the heat out. Using lighter colours inside or even a large panoramic sunroof would have done wonders for this, but it is what it is.
Admittedly, the C-HR is a compact SUV, but other manufacturers do it better and make their compact SUVs feel bigger, not smaller.
On to more positive aspects of the 2024 C-HR. All the AC is controlled via actual buttons, as is seat and steering wheel heating. I’m happy about this; after a run of cars that use the screen to adjust the AC, having physical buttons just works. The heated seats have three levels of heating, while the steering wheel is simply on/off.
Being the GR (sporty) model, the red and grey synthetic-leather front seats have some pretty large side bolsters to hold you snug, while the red stitching definitely adds a sporty touch. You’ll also see a GR log on the headrests. The driver’s seat has electric adjustment, while the passenger’s seat has manual adjustment.
There’s more red stitching on the doors, along with some alcantara. The front doors have an LED light strip, and if you go to open your door and there’s a car coming, they will glow red as a warning. It really grabs your attention, and is a great passive safety feature.
Overall, Toyota have done a fine job of making touchpoints feel soft and plush, or just feel like a bit of quality. With its price, that’s certainly expected.
New to the C-HR is a rubberised Qi wireless charging pad in front of the centre console. It works well, and your phone doesn’t slide around in the slightest. There’s also wireless Apple CarPlay or Android Auto to use, if you want to use either of those instead of using the car’s infotainment system. At the rear of the centre console is a good-sized cubby that has a 12-volt socket in it, along with a single USB-C port. There’s another USB-C port at the front of the centre console, but no 12-volt, so I had to run my dashcam from the cubby.
Above the glove box is a cellphone shelf of sorts, while on top of the dashboard are some funky blocky designs like something out of Minecraft. Perhaps trying to replicate some of the design of the outside of the car? However, it sort of works, and the interior feels far more modern than the previous C-HR.
The boot is reasonable at 422 litres, while the loading height is a little high for, uh, older drivers. There’s no spare in the C-HR, not that that’s different from most others in this class. Instead of a spare, you get a tyre repair kit.
What’s The 2024 Toyota C-HR GR Sport Hybrid Like To Drive?
It took less than a minute to connect my iPhone to the C-HR, always a good start. I’m happy to report that I had no issues with Bluetooth connections, and when getting back into the car, it always reconnected almost immediately. It may be 2024, but there are still cars that have issues with this.
You get wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in the C-HR, so you can use your own apps if you want to. That means using a map app on your phone if you want to, although the car has built-in SatNav as well. The GR models also have a heads-up display (HUD) on the windscreen, and will show your navigation directions right there on the windscreen, as well as on the dash and the centre screen. The HUD only works for the built-in SatNav, so keep that in mind. The built-in SatNav does well, and even using the voice control button from the steering wheel saw it pick up my spoken destination pretty well.
With 668km of range showing on our test car on pick up, I was looking forward to seeing just how far I could actually get out of one tank of gas in real-world driving conditions.
Around town, the back window feels quite small when looking out the interior mirror and the C pillars are pretty large, so your vision is blocked a bit when changing lanes. This is a pretty common occurrence in modern cars, but like so many cars today, the C-HR has blind spot monitoring on the exterior mirrors to help keep you safe. One thing that doesn’t help with visibility is that back window; the C-HR has no rear window wiper, so in the rain just shows splotches of water. The same happens in the morning if the back window is covered in dew – you have to head off and hope the rear window demister kicks in quickly. I know it’s all in the interest of design, but I hope this current fad of no rear wiper fades out soon.
The dashboard is a complete change from the last generation of C-HR, and is now very current with a stand-alone screen with no cowl. It’s crystal clear and sunlight has no effect on its display. You get to pick from three different dashboards in the C-HR, and then within each dashboard you can move up and change the information shown in each of the 3 gauges. There seems to be something for everyone, and since the HUD shows your speed, you can play around with all the dashboards and ignore worrying about always having one of them being a digital speedo. Some of the options for the 3 gauges include Eco Score, fuel economy, trip meter, SatNav, audio, AWD usage, and hybrid display.
The centre screen has had a big upgrade too, it’s now nice and wide and some of the screens have nicely high resolution, including the SatNav screen. I say ‘some’ of the screens have high resolution, and that’s because some definitely do not. It’s like Toyota didn’t finish the whole job. For example, the energy flow screen almost looks very low-res.
While the speed between screens is nicely quick, one thing I wish Toyota would do is have a home screen. In the C-HR, you have to pick your screen such as audio, phone, or SatNav. Other brands give you options for your home screen, normally three panels where you can pick what is shown on each panel. Hopefully we’ll see this in the next big update. At the base of the centre screens is an off button, as well as buttons for volume.
Enough of the tech etc, what about driving the 2024 C-HR GR Sport Hybrid? Overall, it’s very good. With a 2.0-litre engine and a hybrid setup, the C-HR should fair fly along. I left the car in Eco mode most of the time (it remembers your previous drive mode, which is great), and occasionally slipped it into Normal or Sport. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between Eco and Normal, although Sport sees a definite change in the car’s responsiveness and performance.
According to Toyota, that’s a “groundbreaking 5th-generation 2.0-litre hybrid engine”. A bold claim – groundbreaking is really putting your hand up to say this is the best-ever, and it’s okay I guess. I just didn’t see the groundbreaking attributes of the engine in my week and 500km of driving it.
It’s smooth enough, and the stated fuel economy at 4.5L/100km is excellent for a 2.0-litre car. Performance is more than acceptable, and slipping the car into Sport mode and flooring it will see lots of get up and go. I think my apprehension around calling this motor groundbreaking is because of two reasons; engine noise, and the constantly variable transmission (CVT). Wellington is full of hills; generally, if you aren’t going up a hill, you’re going down one. It’s going up hills where this engine can be quite vocal. It’s never loud or intrusive, but it’s not groundbreakingly quiet. It’s refined enough, sure, but quietness is not one of its strengths. Of course, on the motorway at 100km/h, things are much better and it’s almost silent in those conditions (as long as you aren’t going up a hill).
Then there’s the Electronically-controlled Continuously Variable Transmission; it suffers from flaring up hills and as mentioned, Wellington has plenty of those. On normal throttle openings it’s absolutely fine, but if you decide to use that 145kW of power, the engine will rev out to maximum rpms and just sit there.
As far as things I didn’t like about the C-HR, that’s pretty much it, as so much of the rest of the car is very well sorted. One highlight for me is the driver attention monitoring (DAM) system; in other cars (basically anything Chinese-built), the DAM will false alert all the time, driving you (and any passengers) a little crazy (this is where a post-it note comes in handy, to block the system). Toyota’s driver attention monitoring works almost perfectly, and so you can check the side mirrors or interior mirror without being told off often. It’s not perfect, but it is one of the best implementations of driver attention monitoring I’ve seen, without going to a Mercedes-Benz or other high-end Euro car.
Driving the C-HR as a commuter is easy, with driving refinement that you’d expect from a brand like Toyota. It’s easy to drive, and would be a great rental – no real surprises, just get in and drive. Road and wind noise are fairly well managed, while there is some tyre noise on certain road surfaces – but never terrible.
If you like cranking up the sounds on your commute, the GR Sport Hybrid has a decent audio system, with a pretty large bass speaker in the boot. Separation is excellent, but weirdly bass severely lacking, even on its highest setting.
After getting out of the Polestar 4 with its haptic steering wheel controls, the C-HR’s felt normal and easy to use. They aren’t perfect; I still found myself looking down to see what I was pressing, and I struggle to understand why manufacturers don’t put the volume buttons in the highest point of the switch block on a steering wheel. Changing the volume is probably the most used item on steering wheel controls, and so should always be at the top. The C-HR’s is at the lowest point, and is a small toggle that is not that easy to use.
While many of the Chinese brands allow you to adjust your steering weight via the infotainment system, the C-HR does not, and doesn’t need to. The steering is well weighted as it is, nice and light at parking speeds and progressively gets heavier as speed increases. No doubt, this is where building cars for decades and gaining experience over that time has helped Toyota no end.
As far as the hybrid side of things go, the C-HR is identical to the Corolla hybrid – just get in and drive. It’s “self-charging” as Toyota loves to call it, so no need to plug it in. Going downhill or braking will see extra energy be diverted to the small battery that helps in performance, or at times just drives the car. You can drive at 100km/h in the C-HR and if there is enough battery charge and you haven’t got your foot down too hard on the gas, the car will run in EV mode.
You can force the C-HR to run in EV mode, as long as the conditions are right. But if you push your foot harder on the gas pedal, the petrol engine will start. Like the Corolla and other hybrid Toyota’s (most commonly seen in the Prius), you can pull the gear lever down to put the car into ‘B’ mode. This will start the engine to charge the battery up, and is most used in cities where you cannot drive with a petrol engine running – so not as useful in New Zealand. It’s a bit of a shame that this does start the engine, as in other brands, slipping the car into B mode simply means more brake regeneration, so you don’t need to use the brakes as much and can get more free energy into the battery bank.
Regardless of driving in ‘B’ or ‘D’, it feels strange that when going downhill, the engine will sometimes run and rev right out to 3,000 or 4,000rpm. I assume this is to give engine braking to help slow the car down, but logic says that going downhill, the car should go into EV mode and use the brakes to create more regen. I’m sure Toyota has an excellent reason for programming the car to run this way, but it felt wrong to see the engine revving so high – and it felt like it was just using extra fuel.
Since our test car was the GR Sport Hybrid, that meant all-wheel drive instead of front-wheel drive. The GR Sport Hybrid certainly feels well planted everywhere it goes, although I didn’t get an opportunity to test it out on any windy roads. General driving is a breeze, and the ride is surprisingly good for a small SUV. Body roll is also good, and handling is up to modern car standards – no surprises here either, and that’s a good thing,
Happily, turning on the adaptive cruise control is simply one button – perfect. If there is a change of speed sign, holding down the ‘Res’ button will set the car’s cruise control speed to the new speed limit. Again, perfect and easy to use. There is one small gotcha here, one that’s common across all Toyota hybrids; if you have the transmission set to B mode, you can’t turn on cruise control.
While Toyota suggests the C-HR GR Sport Hybrid should return 4.5L/100km for fuel economy, I managed to get 5.1L/100km over the week. While this is slightly higher than expected, for a 2.0-litre car, that’s an excellent result. I had 200km left in the tank when I dropped the C-HR back after our week and 500km of driving, giving us a real-world range of 700km from the 43-litre tank. Pretty good!
READ ON TO CHECK OUT OUR SUMMARY OF THE 2024 TOYOTA C-HR GR SPORT HYBRID.
2024 Toyota C-HR GR Sport Hybrid – Specifications
| Vehicle Type | Compact all-wheel-drive hybrid SUV |
| Starting Price | $55,990 |
| Price as Tested | $56,990 |
| Engine | 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder petrol hybrid |
| Power, Torque kW/Nm | 112@6,000rpm Combined power with hybrid assistance, 145kW 190@4,400rpm |
| Transmission | Electronically-controlled Continuously Variable Transmission |
| Spare Wheel | Tyre repair kit |
| Kerb Weight, Kg | 1,575 |
| Length x Width x Height mm | 4,360×1,832×1,564 |
| Boot Space / Cargo Capacity, Litres (seats up/seats down) | 422/1,490 |
| Fuel tank capacity, litres | 43 |
| Fuel Economy, L/100km | Advertised Spec – Combined – 4.5 Real-World Test – Combined – 5.1 Low Usage: 0-6 / Medium Usage 6-12 / High Usage 12+ |
| Towing Capacity Kg, unbraked/braked | 725/725 |
| Turning circle metres | 11.6 Small: 6-10m / Medium 10-12m / Large 12m+ |
| Warranty | 5 year warranty 5 Years Roadside Assistance 5 Years WoF 5 years capped-price servicing |
| Safety information | ANCAP Rating – 5 stars – Link Rightcar.govt.nz – 5 Stars – QHZ830 |
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