Toyota Yaris !!!!

Toyota may not have invented the hybrid-powered vehicle, but it has become accustomed to breaking through petrol-electric barriers nonetheless. The Yaris Hybrid is Toyota's first foray into the supermini segment with parallel hybrid technology.

When the original Prius went on sale in Japan 15 years ago, it was the culmination of a development process that had begun five years earlier, and marked the introduction of the first mass-produced hybrid car. The seismic ripples generated not only by its novel configuration but also by the 2.5 million sales it subsequently accumulated continue to be felt across an industry that’s still working frantically to catch up with the manufacturing colossus.

The Yaris has the potential to be an even more conductive lightning rod than its bigger hybrid brother. It is smaller, cleaner and, most importantly, cheaper than the established hybrid norm, and it is perfectly positioned to unlock the untapped market potential of the petrol-electric supermini.

DESIGN

Only a manufacturer as heavily invested in petrol-electric propulsion as Toyota could launch a car at once so pragmatic and so technologically advanced as the Yaris Hybrid. Toyota counts this car as the world’s first full hybrid supermini. The existence of Honda’s Jazz Hybrid makes that claim debatable to put it mildly, but this is doubtless one of the very first ‘sub-compact’ hatchbacks we’ve tested  that can run on petrol power, battery power, or a combination of both.

Why pragmatic? Because much of the mechanicals of this car have been recycled from the second-generation ‘XW20’ Prius. It’s a tactic that has contributed to Toyota achieving one of its primary objectives: at £14,995, this is the cheapest full hybrid on the market, and by some margin. Also, building the car at the firm’s factory in Valenciennes, France, means that its price should be immune from the yen-related currency fluctuations that could affect some of its rivals.

The 1.5-litre Atkinson cycle four-cylinder petrol engine, sourced from the XW20 Prius parts bin, has been engineered for less friction, and 70 per cent of its components have been redesigned. It now produces slightly less power and torque, but Toyota says its thermal efficiency has improved by six per cent.

The Hybrid Synergy Drive is made up of a downsized E-CVT and a smaller electric motor than you’ll find in a current Prius or Auris Hybrid, plus a nickel-metal hydride battery made up of 120 individual cells rather than 168 as before. The Yaris’s battery is 20 per cent smaller (by volume) and 11kg lighter than that in the Auris. It is located entirely beneath the rear seats and barely intrudes into either passenger or boot space.

According to our road test scales, the car weighs just 90kg more than the 1.3-litre Yaris we tested last year. So far, so quietly impressive.

INTERIOR

It’s almost a shame that the pay-off for Toyota’s inventive and cost-effective reshaping of its hybrid hardware in the Yaris Hybird is a pretty ordinary interior. 

The latest Yaris was always intended to swallow a battery pack, but Toyota’s engineers still deserve credit for preserving the car’s internal dimensions, and they can take pride in the fact that spaciousness remains one of the car’s most compelling assets. An extra 20mm on the front overhang may have nudged the Yaris close to four metres but, seated inside, it would be hard to persuade a blindfolded rear cabin passenger that the model wasn’t much bigger than that. As well as accommodating adult-sized thigh bones, it feels airy in a way that’s matched only by its closest rival, the Jazz Hybrid.

Elsewhere, ice-grey soft-touch pads on the dashboard do a good job of breaking up the otherwise monotonous colour scheme, and 

the Yaris swaps its revcounter for a backlit battery dial that shuffles between Charge, Eco and Power. Similarly, there are now two buttons adjacent to the handbrake, for selecting Eco and EV modes.

Otherwise, a splash of Prius-blue switchgear and an energy monitor screen for the 6.1-inch Touch & Go display are all that distinguishes the model from a standard Yaris.

Such a policy may be useful in helping to lever Toyota’s conservative supermini demographic into a new-fangled hybrid, but the cockpit could also be interpreted as a missed opportunity for distinctiveness. The company continues to mass-produce robustness better than anyone, but its mainstream competitors have moved interior style several streets ahead.

PERFORMANCE

The key consideration in this section has to be fuel economy. No one who’s driven a Toyota hybrid would expect particularly strong performance from the Yaris – and nor would they get it. But with an increasingly wide selection of sub-100g, road-tax-free superminis to choose from, this car must at least get close to its 76mpg combined economy claim in order to justify Toyota’s “class-leading efficiency” billing.

And it can’t. Or at least it can’t across the broad mix of driving through which every Autocar road test subject is assessed. Our average economy result of 51.6mpg would be good for a supermini powered by petrol alone, but you’d hope for a much better return from a car billed as among the most frugal on the road.

You’ll get a much better return, mind, if you spend the majority of your time driving in town – which is exactly where superminis tend to be driven. A true 65mpg is possible in economy-minded, exclusively urban driving, where the battery regenerates kinetic energy with impressive speed. You’d be lucky to get within 10mpg of that in a Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion or Ford Fiesta Econetic.

Another advantage the Yaris has is refinement. Toyota has taken a lot of the high-rev mechanical thrash out of its petrol-electric powerplant, and the car is quite well mannered even at the wide throttle openings necessary for anything approaching a hurry.

But it’s slow – particularly above 50mph, where modest power, plenty of frontal area and an efficiency-biased transmission totally hamstring its performance. On a fairly windy day at MIRA, the Yaris Hybrid failed to record a 90mph two-way average over a standing mile. There’s only one other car we’ve tested in the past few years that has failed similarly – and that’s the Renault Twizy.