2021 Toyota Yaris review This is one of the most efficient cars on the market!
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00:00G'day, I'm Paul. Now, if you're thinking about rolling over your current Yaris into a new one,
00:04just steady on for a second. Toyota has jacked up the price of the entry-level Yaris by around
00:09$6,000. It is a huge leap. And this right here, the top-spec hybrid model, is actually almost
00:16as expensive as the top-spec Corolla hybrid. There's about $2,000 difference. So, this is
00:21priced at just over $32,000, and it competes with things like the Mazda 2, the Suzuki Swift.
00:27There's not really any other competitors that offer this kind of fuel economy,
00:31so it is a little bit different to those, but it is still quite expensive for a small car.
00:35Today, we're going to do a detailed review of the Toyota Yaris ZR hybrid. If you do want to skip
00:40ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes up on the screen there,
00:43or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below. And if you haven't done
00:47so already, make sure you hit subscribe and press the bell icon so you can find out every single
00:51time we drive a really blue car. Okay, let's talk exterior. Being a Yaris, you have a lit
00:57many of colours to choose from. 12 colours, and all but white is an additional $500. In fact,
01:02I love the colour palette. They've got everything from this crazy blue to pinks and yellows. It is
01:06literally buyer's choice. Now, down here, check out this grille. So, if you've seen our GR Yaris
01:12review, you can watch that by clicking up here. You'll notice that it needs a big old grille for
01:16cooling. This doesn't as much, but you can see that they have carried over that styling, and I
01:21quite like this textured pattern that they've got on the grille, and that follows up on the
01:25headlights there as well. It's quite a neat looking car, and I think it will suit the
01:28demographic of the buyer, which is likely to be someone young or perhaps someone older that's
01:33going to go for some of these crazy colours. Now, have a look at this logo here. So, if you've seen
01:37our other Toyota Hybrid reviews, you'll know that the blue in there means that this is a hybrid
01:41vehicle, so that's an easy way to tell. Over here, we have full LED headlights with LED daytime
01:46running lights, and then we'll jump around to the side. You have these cute little 16-inch alloy
01:52wheels. They do look nice and small, but they do look sharp as well, so they match the rest of the
01:57car and the design there. So, you've got that reflective chrome-y element on the outside,
02:00and then the darker black on the inside there as well. Now, the Hybrid badge on the side,
02:05so you don't forget that you're trying to save the planet. Indicator built into that wing mirror,
02:09black mirror cap along the top there. This one also has the black roof optioned on it as well,
02:15and that follows around to the side. You can see that sort of colour palette continue up the top.
02:19Come around to the rear, you have LED taillights, and then this red strip that runs along the top.
02:24Boot lip spoiler built into there, a shark fin antenna as well. One more Hybrid badge,
02:28just for good measure, and then a Yaris badge tucked in along the top there. Another blue
02:32Toyota badge as well. So, let me know what your thoughts are in the comments section below about
02:36the design. Do you think it will suit the demographic, or do you think they've gone a
02:39little bit too far with it? So, we're inside the Yaris. Let's start with what the key looks like.
02:43Here it is here. Pretty basic looking key. Lock, unlock, Toyota symbol with a little bit of blue
02:47there because Hybrid, and then blank on the back. It's a proximity sensing key, so you just leave
02:52that in your pocket. Grab the door handle, and then hit the power button to kick things over.
02:56Now, what about styling? Well, it looks youthful and vibrant. You've got that big infotainment
03:01system sitting up the top there, plus this red section here. The rest of it's sort of
03:05pretty sort of hard plastic. The top stuff up here is nice and soft, but the rest is
03:09fairly scratchy. And what about your touch points? Well, you don't have a centre arm rest,
03:13but you do have this material along the door. It's pretty firm though.
03:16Now, how hard are these surfaces? Well, we've tested them with our durometer. If you want to
03:20see how this car compares to other cars that we've tested before, just use the link in the
03:24description below. Now, what about build quality? Well, it all feels pretty solid. There's not much
03:29to complain about. There is a bit of flex in that centre section, but for the most part,
03:33this all feels okay. Let's talk infotainment. So, the Yaris comes with a 7-inch infotainment system.
03:39It's a colour touchscreen with shortcut buttons either side. If you want to see a detailed review
03:44of this, you can click up here. Today, I'll just give you a brief overview. So, it looks a bit out
03:48of place, doesn't it? 7 inches, it could really just take up that entire screen, but it's condensed
03:53into the centre there, which is a little bit strange. But anyway, you do get inbuilt satellite
03:57navigation. You get AM, FM, DAB plus digital radio. And then in terms of smartphone mirroring,
04:04you have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both require a cable though, so there's no wireless
04:09setup here. Now, I'll show you what Android Auto looks like first. There it is there. So,
04:13full screen integration, and then you have fairly decent speed as well, not too laggy. Let's have a
04:19look at Apple CarPlay. Now, the full screen integration, we'll have a look at the menu
04:23there. That's fairly fast and responsive as well. Now, this also comes with voice recognition using
04:29the button on the steering wheel. You can just prompt the car directly, or if you have your
04:32smartphone connected with a cable, it will allow you to send commands through your phone. Now,
04:37there is also a screen ahead of the driver that includes your trip computer, information about
04:42what the hybrid system is doing, music selection, navigation, et cetera, et cetera. It's only a small
04:48screen, but it gives you all the information you need. And then it's paired with a head-up display
04:52that delivers everything else that you're looking for. In addition to that, you have a six-speaker
04:56sound system. And then on the connectivity front, it's a little bit disappointing because you have
05:00one USB point, and that's going to be used when you do plug in your smartphone for mirroring,
05:04and then a 12-volt outlet hidden away down here. You won't find any wireless phone charging.
05:08Let's talk safety. You get autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection.
05:13You have a lane-keeping assistant, a lane departure warning, radar cruise control,
05:18blind spot monitoring built into those wing mirrors, rear cross-traffic alert. And I think
05:22this is pretty cool. You have an airbag in the centre, so that prevents the two front passengers
05:28colliding with each other. And then in terms of the sensors, you have front and rear parking
05:32sensors and a reverse view camera. Let's have a look at what that looks like. There it is there.
05:36Okay, so it's a reasonable camera. You've got guidelines, and then you can adjust the amount
05:39of zoom you have on that lens, and you can also get rid of those guidelines as well.
05:44Okay, let's talk practicality. We'll start with storage and phone storage. So you've got a slot
05:48up at the front here that you can pop your phone, but again, no wireless phone charging, and you can
05:53store it in the cup holders as well if you want. Now in terms of cup holders, coffee cup lives in
05:58there, but you'll notice that it doesn't sit on the bottom, so it makes it a little bit tricky to
06:03pull out without spilling your coffee everywhere. Then in terms of bottles, they easily fit into
06:08those cup holders, and you also have storage inside the doors. But what's actually really
06:12cool here, despite the fact this car is so small, you can actually fit a full-size drink bottle in
06:16the doors as well. And you've also got storage for a bottle up the back there. Now you've got this
06:21slot up the top here. It's not gripped, so I don't know that you'd put your phone there, but
06:24it gives you an idea of how big it is. Another trinket tray there, and then you have a glove box
06:28too. Decent size, you can fit a bottle in there as well. So in terms of comfort, you have single-zone
06:33automatic climate control. No headed seats or anything like that. Now in terms of the seats,
06:37have a look at this. So yes, they are cloth and not leather, but I actually quite like this design.
06:41It's textured up the top here, a lot of different colours, just looks really nice and cool. It's
06:45very different to what you'd normally expect to see, and they're really comfy seats as well, so
06:49they hug you in nicely. It is also worth noting that despite this being the top spec model and
06:53being really expensive for what it is, there's no electric seat adjustment. It's all fully manual.
06:57The steering wheel is a great size. It sits perfectly in the hands, and then all of these
07:01controls are easy to reach. OK, we're in the back seat of the Yaris. It is very compact back here.
07:08As you'd expect, it is a small car, so my knees are well and truly into that seat. Keep in mind,
07:13I do have my seat quite far back, but it shows you how little room you have. Plenty of toe room
07:17though, which is great, and headroom is OK. You get a matte pocket at the back of the passenger
07:22seat, but not the driver's seat. There's no USB sockets, no air vents or anything like that.
07:26There's no centre armrest, but you can pop your bottle inside the door if you need to.
07:31Speaking of the door, it's all quite scratchy as well over here. There's no real soft materials
07:36in the back here, so it is a little bit gloomy, but you do get two ISOFIX points on the outboard
07:41seats, and that same textured material carries onto the back here as well. OK, cargo space. So,
07:46small car, small boot. How small though? So, we are talking 270 litres. It's actually down on the
07:53last one in terms of cargo space. Weird, Toyota did that with the Corolla as well, but anyway,
07:58you've got two levels to this boot. You've got this one here, and then underneath here you have
08:01another sub-level, then underneath that you have a space saver spare tyre. Now, the question is,
08:07is it going to fit our bag and our luggage? I think it will. Yes, it does. There you go.
08:13Now, if you do need more room though, you can drop that second row. You can also remove the
08:18cargo blinds. So, a quick push of that drops that, and then a quick push of that drops that.
08:23If your passenger seat's not in the way, you will have a flat load floor.
08:28OK, we're on the road in the Yaris. Now, this is the hybrid, which means there's two powertrains.
08:33You've got the standard internal combustion engine, and then you also have a hybrid drivetrain. So,
08:38the internal combustion side is a 1.5-litre three-cylinder naturally aspirated petrol engine.
08:44It makes 67 kilowatts of power and 120 newton metres of torque. So, it's a teeny tiny engine,
08:50but it is backed up by that hybrid drivetrain, and that uses an electric motor that produces
08:5559 kilowatts of power and 141 newton metres of torque. Now, these can operate either independently
09:01or together, and then when they do operate together, you get a combined power output of
09:0585 kilowatts of power, and that means that when you are plodding along, it can run entirely on
09:11electric, and that's powered by a 0.8 kilowatt hour lithium-ion battery that is absolutely tiny.
09:17As a comparison, something like my Tesla Model 3, for example, has just under 80 kilowatt hours, so
09:22its battery is very small, but when it is running off the battery, it can run on EV power alone,
09:27and that means that the internal combustion engine is entirely switched off, or alternatively,
09:32it can run as a series hybrid where the internal combustion engine and that electric motor combine
09:38to give you a little bit more of a push. When it is in EV-only mode, it is pretty slow, and then
09:42once you start getting into the throttle, it will kick on the petrol engine, but if you plant your
09:47foot and get both of them going, it's actually pretty peppy. It gets up and moves pretty nicely,
09:52it's not too slow, and it doesn't feel like you're going to be stuck and holding up traffic
09:55as you try and move along. All of that power and torque is sent through a continuously variable
10:01transmission, so that's the type that effectively has an infinite number of gear ratios, and you can
10:06tell it's a CVT because when you punch it, it just makes a whole lot of noise and doesn't sound like
10:12it's changing through gears. To help you understand what's actually going on though, you have a head-up
10:15display in front of the driver. As you roll out of the throttle, it comes up to say that it's charging.
10:21As you lean on the throttle, it stays within an initial eco band, which is just the electric motor
10:26running powered by the battery. Then when you go beyond the eco band, it kicks on the petrol engine,
10:32and then if you go full throttle, it goes into power mode, where it gives you everything that
10:36it possibly can. So this is kind of an incentive to drive steady and to drive nice and gently,
10:42because you always want to keep it within the eco band. Being a teeny tiny hybrid, fuel economy is
10:48really impressive in this, and Toyota claims an official number of 3.3 litres per 100 k's.
10:54That is barely anything. In terms of the figure we're achieving, we're sitting on 3.6, so it's
11:00pretty much bang on exactly where you need to be. That's with fairly sensible driving. If you do get
11:04stuck into it, that'll go a little higher, but at the end of the day, I've found with Toyota's hybrids,
11:08you can pretty much thrash them, and they barely ever use any fuel. In terms of other drive modes,
11:12you have an eco mode, you have a normal mode, and then a power mode. Power mode simply sharpens
11:18everything up, so instead of having to go full throttle to get 100% of power and torque, you only
11:23really have to go halfway down the throttle travel, and it starts delivering everything. So
11:28it doesn't give you any extra power, it just gives you the impression you have more power,
11:31because it's reaching that upper limit earlier. There is another drive mode here. If you go into
11:36B, it starts increasing the regeneration intensity, so that as you roll out of the throttle,
11:42you are getting more energy plumbed back into those batteries. But it also does something
11:45curious, and I don't know exactly how this works, but when the engine is off, if I roll out of the
11:50throttle, I can hear it come back on, and it sounds like it's actually doing engine braking
11:54in addition to the regen, so you are slowing down and recouping as much energy as you can without
12:00using any fuel. So Toyota doesn't quote a 0-100 time, but I thought we'd record it anyway just
12:06to see how quick it is. Let's talk road noise. So we're out on a country road at the moment,
12:21it's course chip. It's pretty quiet in here, there isn't a great deal of noise coming into
12:25the cabin. There is a little bit of wind noise about those wing mirrors, but for the most part,
12:29it's fairly pleasant. Okay, ride. This is probably the thing I like the most about this car. It is
12:34just so nice and smooth. I found with a lot of new Toyotas lately, they've absolutely nailed the
12:39ride. They've just made it so that it's not overly soft, not overly firm, but it suits all types of
12:45road conditions, and you just feel nice and relaxed inside the car. In terms of steering feel,
12:49it's a pretty loose steering rack, so you don't have to put a great deal of effort into making
12:54the car turn, and that's especially helpful at low speeds when it comes to parking. This is
12:58fairly straightforward to slot into a park, but made even easier due to that light steering.
13:02Brake pedal feel is also good. Often with these hybrids, as you transition from a regen mode into
13:08the mechanical brakes working, you can feel a bit of a shunt, but they've sorted that out. Toyota has
13:12so much experience when it comes to hybrids that it really is a non-event, it just works as it
13:17should. Let's talk turning circle. So 10.2 metres, that is a very, very tight turning circle,
13:24means you can pretty much just do a U-turn on the spot. As you can imagine, visibility is
13:28fantastic, you can clearly see out the front there. The wing mirrors are pretty small, so
13:34I don't know, they could be a little bit bigger, but you do have blind spot monitoring built into
13:38them, and then visibility out the rear is okay. It's kind of impinged by those seat backs, they
13:43get in the way of things sometimes. So the Toyota Yaris ZR Hybrid, there's actually nothing wrong
13:48with this. The hybrid drivetrain is fantastic, it uses barely any fuel, and for the type of person
13:53that needs a small car, it has enough room for them, but the problem is the price. I mean, it is
13:58just far too expensive for what it is, especially when you consider that it is within earshot of a
14:03Corolla. You're probably just better off getting a Corolla Hybrid because you're getting more car
14:06for the money, and it's only about $2,000 extra. So let me know in the comments section below,
14:10do you reckon Toyota has overdone it with the pricing? Did you buy one? Are you actually paying
14:15the price that they're asking, or is that just a recommended retail price? Let me know your thoughts
14:19in the comments section below. If you did enjoy this review, make sure you hit like and share it,
14:23and don't forget to subscribe and press the bell icon as well. That's going to tell you every single
14:27time we drive something new, but until next time, take it easy.