The new Toyota Yaris Cross is not what you think

The Toyota Yaris Cross is only three years old, but Toyota is already delivering a brand new one. However, the new Toyota Yaris Cross that plays a central role in this article will not replace the well-known crossover. What’s up with that?

About three years ago, Europe completed its European launch with the Yaris Cross. The compact crossover shares its variant of Toyota’s common TNGA platform with the Yaris and is definitely not old. There is already an all-new Toyota Yaris Cross, but except for its name, it has nothing to do with the model of the same name that you can buy in the Netherlands.

The recently launched Toyota Yaris Cross is another fruit of the close collaboration between Toyota and its subsidiary Daihatsu. So it sits on the DNGA-B platform, a variant of the Daihatsu New Global Architecture platform that also underpins cars like the Toyota Yaris Ativ and Daihatsu Xenia, Toyota Avanza, Veloz and Perodua Alza quads. The short version presented by Toyota Astra Motor – Toyota’s Indonesian branch – is 4.31 meters long and therefore 10 centimeters longer than ‘our’ Yaris Cross. The wheelbase of the Yaris Cross, intended for the East Asian market, is 2.62 meters, exceeding that of the European Yaris Cross by 6 centimeters. This makes this new Yaris Cross slightly larger than the model that has been sold in Europe for about three years.

This Yaris crossover also shows similarities to the RAV4 at the back.

Depending on the country where it will be sold, the Toyota Yaris Cross is available with 106 hp 1.5 and 91 hp 1.5 which work in a hybrid powertrain with 80 hp electric power. System power: 111 hp. The hybrid Yaris Cross battery has a capacity of 0.7 kWh. Interestingly enough, the 1.5s mentioned are completely different 1.5s than the ones you’ll find in Toyotas, hybrid or not, that are offered in Europe. Not three cylinders, but four cylinders.

Also in terms of design, this Yaris Cross differs from the model of the same name that fills European showrooms. To put it in a nutshell, this new model looks like a scaled-down version of the Toyota RAV4.

You can already feel it coming: This Toyota Yaris crossover isn’t coming to Europe. Do you think this Yaris Cross looks better than the model you can buy here? Why or why?