Living with a… Toyota Urban Cruiser (Month 4)
Compact electric crossovers are all the rage, so we’re living with an Urban Cruiser to find out if it can hold its own
Words by: Catherine Kent
Published on 18 May 2026 | 0 min read
The Toyota Urban Cruiser is a compact electric crossover sharing roots with the Suzuki e Vitara. The Urban Cruiser aims to offer a blend of bold styling, practicality and value. The only trouble is all its competitors followed the same brief, and Toyota is late to the party. Does the Urban Cruiser stack up against the likes of the Skoda Elroq, Kia EV3, Volvo EX30 or Jeep Avenger? I’ve got six months to find out.
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What is it?
- Model: Toyota Urban Cruiser
- Version: 61kWh
- Spec level: Design
- Options fitted: Graphite Grey metallic paint £965
- Price as tested: £36,465
Who’s testing it?
We like
- Physical climate control toggles
- Heated steering wheel
- In-app temperature pre-conditioning
We don’t like
- Slow and fiddly infotainment
- Tiny boot
- Winter efficiency
Month 1 – Mixed feelings
Catherine says: “You need four taps of the screen to turn on the heated seat and it takes an age for the graphics to load – Toyota is clearly going for some sort of record”
How much has it cost you?
£22.37 for public charging during my first trip out in the car, plus two at home overnight top-ups costing 7p per kWh. So far I've spent less than £30 in total!Where have you been?
I travelled to Crawley to collect the Urban Cruiser and my initial journey was a 240-mile drive home to Manchester. Since then I’ve been keeping it local with various trips around my neighbourhood. The furthest I have travelled is a 24-mile roundtrip into central Manchester.What have you been carrying?
We used the Toyota to collect our Christmas tree and I’ve been driving around with a car full of pine needles ever since. Foliage aside, I’ve only needed to carry a few bags of shopping.Delights?
I like the chunky looks, and I appreciate the physical heating and fan speed controls. My mid-range car comes with blind spot monitoring, heated seats and a heated steering wheel, so it’s a warm and safe place to be. The weather has been particularly cold lately and I’ve made good use of the pre-conditioning function in the Toyota app. The Urban Cruiser may not the peppiest electric car, but I am pleased it can easily accelerate up to motorway speeds as I spend a lot of time on the M60 and M6.Frustrations?
Before you even start driving the Urban Cruiser there are some compromises to accept. The first is the painfully slow and clunky infotainment system. When you turn the car on there’s a safety warning which won’t clear unless you press to close on the touch-screen (ironic). By far the worst bit, though, is you need four taps of the screen just to turn on the heated seat and it takes an age for the graphics to load – Toyota is clearly going for some sort of record. Thank goodness there are some physical heating toggles! The second issue is the tiny boot, which is particularly odd given this is supposed to be a family car. I'm finding the very firm seats somewhat uncomfortable as well. Once you do get underway, the winter range is not particularly good (you can read more about this here) and the ride quality isn’t great either.This month in a nutshell
I have mixed feeling about the Urban Cruiser. I’m looking forward to living with an EV and not having to visit petrol stations. However, it's not the slickest, funkiest or most practical electric car in its class so it will be interesting to see whether it can win me over.
Month 2 – A game of chicken
Catherine says: “Oh my goodness the Urban Cruiser is slow to charge! We’re talking over 40 minutes to add about 100 miles of real-world range.”
How much has it cost you?
About £50 for public charging, some free electricity when I plugged in at my mum and dad’s, plus a full charge on my off-peak energy tariff at home. Not too shabby!Where have you been?
A few local journeys and a 500-mile roundtrip from Manchester to Suffolk and back to visit my parents.What have you been carrying?
I played chauffeur for the weekend and took my parents for a day out in Bury St Edmunds. I rarely escape from my favourite shops without buying something, but I couldn’t go too wild this time because two bags and the charging cable are enough to fill most of the Urban Cruiser’s boot.Delights?
On my first long distance drive in the Urban Cruiser, I discovered the car has no idea how far it will go on a charge. The predicted range is an overestimate, while the average efficiency reading is woefully pessimistic – essentially you are left playing a game of chicken while you figure out what it can really do. By the time I headed back from Suffolk, I was feeling confident the Urban Cruiser is good for about 180 miles on the motorway from a full battery. I set off with 95 per cent charge and got as far as the M6 toll before deciding to stop. Unfortunately, the chargers at the main service station weren’t working, but I made it to a charger on the outskirts of Cannock with 14 per cent left and having travelled 152 miles. Granted this doesn’t sound very far, but the car was claiming to average just 2.6 miles/kWh which would have meant a total range of about 156 miles. Thankfully this was a lie otherwise I might still be somewhere along the M6! I am claiming this small victory.Frustrations?
Oh my goodness the Urban Cruiser is slow to charge! We’re talking over 40 minutes to add about 100 miles of real-world range. If you are someone who likes to take long breaks in your journey you’ll have time to buy a coffee, wait for it to cool and drink the whole thing before the car is ready to set off again. However, I often do my longer journeys on an evening when I just want to get to my destination as quickly as possible. Given many similar EVs can accept over twice as much power as the Urban Cruiser, waiting around becomes all the more frustrating.This month in a nutshell
The more time I spend in the Urban Cruiser, the more puzzled I am. I know it’s intended to be used mainly as an urban runabout (the clue is in the name), but for a similar price you could have a Nissan Leaf which has an official range of nearly 400 miles.
Month 3 – Have a little patience
Catherine says: “Now I am over the initial uncertainty phase of living with the Urban Cruiser, long journeys are much easier because I can plan charging stops based on my own insight rather than the car’s inaccurate predicted range”
How much has it cost you?
Charging at home costs literally pennies, but this month I’ve spent £81.50 on public charging. It would have been more expensive, but I managed to blag a free top-up at Toyota’s HQ when I spent the day testing the Urban Cruiser’s larger sibling, the C-HR+.Where have you been?
A skip the size of a barge has appeared in the road opposite our driveway which has made getting in and out a challenge. I’d been avoiding taking the Urban Cruiser out and letting my husband navigate the obstacle course in his own car, but a work trip eventually forced me squeeze the Toyota off the drive. I then headed off on a 550-mile round trip from Manchester to Crawley, down to Goodwood and the back home.What have you been carrying?
Just me and an overnight bag.Delights?
It’s a strange world we live in where buttons in cars have become a luxury feature, and I am grateful for the physical temperature toggles in the Urban Cruiser. In other good news I am now comfortable my car will do around 180 miles on a full charge, which on a full battery allows me to travel about 150 miles along a motorway before I need to start thinking about stopping for a top-up. Plus, it's getting warmer, so the range is likely to increase. Now I am over the initial uncertainty phase of living with the Urban Cruiser, long journeys are much easier because I can plan charging stops based on my own insight rather than the car’s inaccurate predicted range and efficiency figures.Frustrations?
The public charging network is growing all the time and even though it’s still not perfect, it is much more reliably than it once was. My journey from Manchester to Crawley required one charging stop of about 45 minutes and I arrived at my overnight destination with 36 per cent left in the battery. The next day I went to an event hosted by Toyota and I was able to charge up to full before heading on my merry way down to Goodwood. So far, so good. However, by the time I got to Goodwood I was 260 miles from home and my battery was 72 per cent charged. To get back I needed two charging stops (or three if you count the charger I abandoned because it wasn’t putting out much power) which added an extra hour and a half on top of what was already a five-hour drive. It had been a long day and by this point I had lost my patience with the Urban Cruiser’s maximum DC charging speed of 67kW which is pretty feeble compared to rivals like the Renault Megane E-Tech’s 130kW or the Kia EV3’s 127kW.This month in a nutshell
I’ve not been experiencing range anxiety, but I’ve definitely encountered charging speed frustration instead.
Month 4 – Here comes the sun
Catherine says: “The Urban Cruiser is now managing much nearer 200 motorway miles on a full charge”
How much has it cost you?
I have spent £46.80 on public charging during two longer journeys this month and a minimal amount on plugging in at home overnight. To be honest, I don’t know how much charging at home has cost me because we’re running two electric cars at home and although my Octopus Energy app says around 24 per cent of our weekly energy usage is off peak, it is not clear exactly how much of that has gone into the Toyota.
Where have you been?
This month I have been making the most of some better weather by pottering in the garden which naturally has resulted in a couple of trips to the garden centre and B&Q. I’ve also used the Urban Cruiser for station runs and a couple of longer journeys: one to my in-laws in Leeds and another for a work event in Northumberland.
What have you been carrying?
Compost and a selection of perennials. While the boot is relatively small, I have discovered the cubbies on either side of the opening are just the right size for a small flowerpot.
Delights?
The weather is warming up which is fantastic news for anyone driving an EV. The Urban Cruiser is now managing much nearer 200 motorway miles on a full charge. Based on my driving this month this is enough to go from Manchester to Leeds and back using half the battery and a full charge will get you from the outskirts of Newcastle to Manchester in one hit.
When you are charging in the wild the MyToyota app comes in very handy so you can keep an eye on your state of charge while you sit and drink a coffee. It will also let you control the air-conditioning and double check you remembered to lock the car.
Frustrations?
I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s something very wrong with the way the Urban Cruiser calculates its efficiency. As the weather warms up, the car becomes more efficient and goes further on a single charge, but the quoted average miles/kWh efficiency on the dashboard gets worse and worse. Toyota needs to go back and check its working because there is clearly something amiss with its maths. I started a 170-mile journey from Northumberland to Manchester on 94 per cent charge and arrived home with 8 per cent left. By my own calculations the car must have averaged 3.3 miles/kWh, yet the car said its efficiency had dropped from 2.1 miles/kWh to 1.9 miles/kWh. If this were true, it would be woeful, but the Urban Cruiser is drastically more efficient than it is letting on. These incorrect numbers are not helpful at all, and while I have covered enough miles in the Urban Cruiser to know what it is really capable of, for anyone new to the car it is extremely misleading.
This month in a nutshell
Spring has sprung and it is doing wonders for the Toyota’s range, even if the Urban Cruiser is reluctant to admit it.
