SUVs make up an increasingly large slice of the new car market in the UK so to launch yet another one in 2026 is a brave move.
However, when you are a car maker with the experience and reputation of Toyota then the chances are it will still prove to be yet another winner.
The Urban Cruiser is the car in question and it certainly looks like a contender with stand-out styling plus lots of passenger room and standard kit.
The compact SUV is front-wheel drive only but there are two battery options and our mid-level Design test version had the larger 61kWh unit with 174bhp and a claimed range of up to 264 miles.
The smaller 49kWh battery has the same range as its e Vitara cousin at 214 miles, has 142bhp and gets to 62mph in 9.6 seconds while our car is a smidge quicker at 8.7 seconds and feels quite fast – especially in sport mode (there are also eco and normal). Top speed is a respectable 93mph.
With a name like Urban Cruiser you’d expect this car to be aimed at city driving but during a week with the car I had to take a 250-mile round trip to Anglesey and it proved to be more than suitable, cruising at motorway speeds and with lots of passenger room front and back. In fact, the rear seats can slide back for even more leg room, although luggage capacity is a bit restricted (216-litres) by the rear mounted battery.
The Welsh country roads also gave Toyota’s ‘active cornering control’ a good workout – braking on the inside wheel tucks the car’s nose in and prevent understeer adding to the confident handling, especially given that this car has an upright body, SUV suspension and energy efficient skinny tyres.
It is in town though were it really shines with light steering, a turning circle of just 10.4 metres plus good front and rear visibility helped by an elevated driving position (and on our car front and rear cameras).
The Urban Cruiser’s maximum charging speed – just 67kW for the large battery or 53kW for the small battery – means a 10 to 80 per cent top-up takes around 45 minutes, no matter which battery capacity you have. Using a typical 7.4kW home wall-box charger will take around 9.5 hours to fully recharge the 61kWh model and just under 8 hours for the 49kWh version.
The good news is a 10 year or one million kilometres warranty on the battery if the car is serviced annually at an approved Toyota dealer. Also, credit to Toyota for including a slow charge three pin cable for those who cannot have a high-power wall-box at home. This put around 30 miles in during an overnight charge for me.
Toyota has made an effort to make the exterior of the Urban Cruiser look suitably rugged and there are a range of paint finishes on Icon and Design while Excel adds the choice of bi-tone paints and a splash of colour with red or green options.
Entry-level Icon trim comes with 18-inch wheels, keyless entry, blind spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control, rear parking sensors, and second-row sliding seats.
The mid-range Design trim has the 61kWh battery and adds nice features like heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, heated door mirrors and windscreen wiper de-icer plus an energy saving heat pump and dual 10-inch displays.
Range-topping Excel comes with 19-inch alloys, a sunroof, panoramic camera system, adaptive LED headlights, a JBL sound system, electric front seats and a wireless phone charger.
The Suzuki input Is most obvious inside in terms of switchgear, layout and materials with hard wearing plastics used but the dashboard has a layer of soft-touch fabric to raise the tone. Unlike the Suzuki e Vitara there is no option of all-wheel drive
The Urban Cruiser gets a four-star Euro NCAP safety score – the same as its Suzuki sibling thanks to a full list of standard safety equipment as every model comes with the brand’s ‘pre-collision system’ with vehicle, pedestrian and cyclist detection, adaptive cruise control, a driver monitoring camera, lane departure alert and lane-keep assist systems.
Our test Design version is £33,495 on the road and has a standard three year, 60,000 mile warranty with that option of a 10-year battery guarantee if the car has been regularly serviced at an approved Toyota garage.
For more info see www.toyota.co.uk
By Motoring Editor Steve Howarth