toyota

Toyota Brings Back the C-HR as the little Stylish EV that Can

Considering this is an entry level CUV for Toyota, I suspect the pricing on this will be low $30,000 to start which for the features will hit a sweet spot for Toyota. Be interesting to see how this does against the Koreans and U.S. auto companies.

6 hours ago, G. David Felt said:

Considering this is an entry level CUV for Toyota, I suspect the pricing on this will be low $30,000 to start which for the features will hit a sweet spot for Toyota. Be interesting to see how this does against the Koreans and U.S. auto companies.

Agreed.  If this is $30k or even low $30s, and maybe a FWD only follows later for $29,995 this pretty much kills Tesla's sub $30k model they hyped up but will never come out.  Especially if GM brings back a Chevy Bolt for $30k.  

Although if the tax credit goes away next year, then the CHR at $32,500 is way less appealing than $25,000. 

And if they do take the tax credit away, I wonder how long before the low cost Chinese EV's show up and just take over the market.

5 hours ago, smk4565 said:

Agreed.  If this is $30k or even low $30s, and maybe a FWD only follows later for $29,995 this pretty much kills Tesla's sub $30k model they hyped up but will never come out.  Especially if GM brings back a Chevy Bolt for $30k.  

Although if the tax credit goes away next year, then the CHR at $32,500 is way less appealing than $25,000. 

And if they do take the tax credit away, I wonder how long before the low cost Chinese EV's show up and just take over the market.

Toyota has stated that it is cheaper to build AWD than to deal with FWD and AWD which I find interesting, but they have taken this AWD approach in China and Europe. So will be interesting to see what happens with the C-HR.

I suspect as much as Idiot47 wants to kill the IRA plan, it would require the House and Senate to agree, and too many red states have billions invested in this for plants, jobs, etc. At this point I doubt the rebate will go away as much as 47 wants it too.

GM gets that Bolt out at the $30,000 starting price for a FWD version and with the IRA instant rebate, it will end up selling well but then it will be going up against this as an AWD and a couple thousand dollars difference, I think many will go with AWD over FWD.

As long as 47 is in office, China will not get into the U.S. market, but after 2028 all bets could be off.

Update: Thinking on this, Subaru version Solterra is AWD only, Toyota bZ is AWD, but will have a later release FWD version and now the C-HR is AWD to start. This makes it possible since all 3 EVs are built on the same platform to offer a cheaper FWD later as you stated @smk4565. So I am thinking they could have a mid $25,000 to $27,000 FWD version before the IRA rebate is applied giving a true cheaper and better equipped EV than Tesla and very competitive with GM Bolt.

My one question is Tesla is falling behind by not moving the Y and 3 or the S and X to 800V systems, will GM or Toyota move to 800V on their entry level EVs or keep them 400V. I think 400V but far more feature rich than Tesla. Much like Kia EV3 is now a confirmed 400V feature rich Subcompact competing in this space already.

On 5/15/2025 at 9:13 PM, G. David Felt said:

I suspect as much as Idiot47 wants to kill the IRA plan, it would require the House and Senate to agree, and too many red states have billions invested in this for plants, jobs, etc. At this point I doubt the rebate will go away as much as 47 wants it too.

As long as 47 is in office, China will not get into the U.S. market, but after 2028 all bets could be off.

My one question is Tesla is falling behind by not moving the Y and 3 or the S and X to 800V systems, will GM or Toyota move to 800V on their entry level EVs or keep them 400V. I think 400V but far more feature rich than Tesla. Much like Kia EV3 is now a confirmed 400V feature rich Subcompact competing in this space already.

I don't think they care about losing investment in red states, they want to cut medicaid to people in red states.  They can just say the tariffs will bring back manufacturing and use that as the excuse.

I think the Chinese car companies can set up factories in India or Mexico or Africa and get the same 25% tariff that Toyota, Ford, GM, etc are paying and then it is probably game over.

I think the 400 volt vs 800 volt matters less for Tesla as having dated designs and bland interiors will.  Tesla was the hot new item for a while, but their product is kind of stale and everyone else has fresher product.  Then there is the Elon issue, I saw a Tesla today with a No Elon sticker on it, I imagine a massive amount of their current owner base isn't going to buy another.  A couple years ago Tesla had like 70% owner loyalty, if that swings the other way to 70% leave, I don't see how they ever grow.

I will want to check this out. 

The Lexus ES is getting a FWD EV variant with about 215 hp and an AWD 338 hp EV variant.  So it looks like they will use same EV powertrain for a lot of Toyota/Lexus products.