Toyota Urban Cruiser Review 2025
Toyota Urban Cruiser At A Glance
Should be good value for money and well-equipped. Likely to be spacious and practical. All-wheel drive option could bolster appeal.
Shame it looks so like its Suzuki twin from most angles.
It seems it’s not just Ford and Vauxhall that are dredging their back catalogues when it comes to naming news models — this new small SUV is the Toyota Urban Cruiser, although consider yourself pre-forgiven if you weren’t aware that there’d been an earlier generation of it.
That first Toyota Urban Cruiser was more of a compact MPV than a tough-looking SUV but it wasn’t especially popular — sales ended over a decade ago after just four years on the market.
Rather than replacing the similarly sized Toyota Yaris Cross the new Urban Cruiser has a different role to play courtesy of it only being available as a full EV, with no combustion-engined alternative.
Neither is the Urban Cruiser all Toyota’s own work either — it’s been developed in conjunction with the Suzuki e Vitara with which it shares its underpinnings as well as various parts of its bodywork and interior.
From the front, the Urban Cruiser apes its showroom siblings such as the larger Toyota C-HR+ and bZ4X models, but from most other angles its relationship to the Suzuki is very apparent. Given this already happens with the Toyota RAV4 and Suzuki Across, it’s unlikely to cause either brand any difficulty.
Small electric SUVs are a huge growth area in the market with most brands already offering an alternative to the Toyota Urban Cruiser or, at worst, soon will be.
Newly launched is the Ford Puma Gen-E, the battery powered version of 2024’s best-selling car in the UK — expect these to become rather commonplace quickly. Another debutant the Toyota will have to face is the excellent Kia EV3 which so far boasts the longest driving range for cars of this size and type.
More established rivals to the Urban Cruiser include the tough-looking Jeep Avenger 4xe, the recently refreshed Vauxhall Mokka Electric and the excellent value Volvo EX30.
Three Toyota Urban Cruiser trim levels will be available which follow the brand's usual hierarchy of Icon, Design and Excel. Those first two will be available with front-wheel drive and powered by a 144PS motor fitted with a 49kWh battery.
There is a larger-batteried 61kWh alternative that also sends its 174PS of power to the front wheels, which will be exclusively sold in the UK in Excel specification. That same battery is also likely to be offered with all-wheel drive, which additionally enjoys a modest power increase to 184PS.
Equipment highlights for the Toyota Urban Cruiser Icon include 18-inch alloy wheels, wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay accessed via a 10.1-inch multimedia touchscreen, 12-colour interior LED lighting, a reversing camera and a blind-spot warning system.
Upgrading to Design grade adds a heated steering wheel and front seats, rear passenger air vents and automatically folding door mirrors. Stepping up to Excel specification adds 19-inch alloys, an upgraded JBL sound system, two-tone paintwork, a panoramic glass roof, a 360-degree camera system and adaptive LED headlights.
Toyota’s not yet offered any guidance — let alone official claims — on driving range or recharging times for the different Urban Cruiser variants.
Orders for the Toyota Urban Cruiser are expected to open in late summer 2025 with the first customer deliveries likely before the year’s end.
Keep this page bookmarked as it will be updated with further news as well as our comprehensive Toyota Urban Cruiser review.
