What’s the passenger space like?
The HR-V is a very welcoming space for front and rear passengers. It’s gigantic and young families will adore the space and comfort afforded rear seat dwellers. The rear doors are huge and the roofline high, so installing babies and toddlers in their rightful places is easy and unthreatening to the cranium. The doorhandle is a little high for external access, so kids will have trouble reaching it, but apart from that, it’s excellent.
The driving position is easy to get right, it feels higher than it really is and there’s loads of clever storage. The centre console bin is absolutely gigantic and the double-storey space beneath the stereo with cable cut outs so you can put the phone somewhere safe is inspired. No, really, it is.
The C-HR is a different type of beast. Aimed at the yoof, who like their avocado smashed and their music streamed, it’s a riot of angles and materials that make up a cohesive whole. Front seat passengers have plenty of room and uncommonly comfortable seats (much better than the HR-V’s flat, over-stuffed seatbacks). The controls and dash design are clear and extremely easy to use, the only flat-spot being Toyota’s irritating habit of fitting a cheap head unit that goes without Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Like what the yoof want (HR-V is bereft, too).
Rear seat passengers aren’t going to be as happy in the C-HR. It’s a little claustrophobic as the windowline sweeps up towards the heavens, meaning flat plastic rather than glass next to your head. Kids in that in-between phase (ie booster seats and being six-feet tall) can’t see much. But they will be comfortable-ish. Access isn’t as easy as the HR-V either, with an even higher exterior doorhandle that is oddly cheap and nasty compared to the rest of the car.
The narrowest of wins to the HR-V here.
Next Page: What the boot space is like
I had another look at C-HR this week – that back seat is ridiculous – it’s a 2 seater really.
Unless you have only 2 people and never want to carry enemies in the back seat – you’d never put friends there, and children would be car-sick in no-time, the HR-V is the only option you could consider (of these 2).
I did sit in the read seats and it’s nothing as you said.
I’ll buy the C-HR if it’s a hybrid like in Europe.