Toyota Urban Cruiser

Ticking the boxes

Words by Mark Slack

Toyota has been a byword for reliability over many decades and with good reason. When the Japanese marques first arrived here in the UK it was, amongst other things, reliability that chimed with the buying public. The same holds true today with Toyota, and their premium brand Lexus, regularly featuring in top ten surveys from Which? to What Car? 

The latest Toyota Urban Cruiser might be a new car but the name isn’t new as since 2008 Toyota and Suzuki have had a partnership that has resulted in various Urban Cruiser models and the latest Urban Cruiser and e-Vitara are largely the same vehicle.

Priced from £32,960 there are three trim levels – Icon, Design & Excel – with a 49kwh or 61kwh battery, 142 bhp and 172 bhp respectively, and either a 106kw or 128kw electric motor driving the front wheels.

Standard fare on the Urban Cruiser is generous with auto lights and wipers, adaptive cruise control, front and rear parking sensors, auto-retracting door mirrors, automatic air conditioning, high beam assist, rear privacy glass, auto dimming rear view mirror, smart entry and start, Bluetooth with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto plus, good news for an EV, a heat pump.

In terms of range the smaller 49 kwh battery will take you 213 miles with the larger 61 kwh 264 miles. Real world range, depending on your driving style and where you’re driving, is more likely to be circa 220 miles with the larger 61kwh battery. The smaller 49kwh model, based on the real-world range is probably best as a city or urban car.

Inside the Urban Cruiser there’s a decent layout but it’s all quite sombre with little or no highlights to liven things up. It’s of a good quality with comfortable seating and a very decent specification, but having potentially paid not that far short of £35,000 (excluding any discounts) for the top-of-the-range Excel version I’d feel a little underwhelmed.

That doesn’t detract from the Urban Cruiser’s practicality, and realistically buyers for the Urban Cruiser aren’t going to be your automotive TikTockers. If you aren’t a car person, need good family transport for the commute, the school run, the supermarket run with the occasional longer run in between, then the Urban Cruiser ticks a lot of boxes.  Reliability, refinement and smoothness plus a 10-year warranty if you have your car serviced at a Toyota dealer. It’s hard to argue against it!

Words by Mark Slack