Toyota Corolla Hybrid | Say a Prayer for Small Cars

The 2023 Corolla Hybrid. Now we've covered the Corolla in multiple iterations over the past few years from the hatch, the naturally aspirated version, the GR Corolla, and now the hybrid sedan. Now you might wonder why you would choose this over something like the new Prius, but here it is. The outside is very, very traditional. You look at it, it looks like a compact car. It's not trying to be over-styled, it's not trying to be bigger than it should be. The Civic has grown in size, it's almost like an Accord. The Altima is huge now. These smaller cars are disappearing and this does feel very maneuverable. When you're driving it around, the turning circle is great. So if you live in a city or you don't have a lot of parking space, this car really checks those boxes. In terms of outside styling, again, smaller wheels, just that classic look. When you get on the inside space, it's basically the same as it's always been since this car's been released. As you move up the trim levels to this XLE, you get this two-tone option, which really brightens up this cabin. The different colored seats have a huge wow factor until you have to clean them or you spill anything on them, and it's got small car problems, I'll be honest. The back seats, they're comfortable, but the rear door is not hinged to open very wide, so it might be harder to get into if you're bigger. Or the bigger issue is if you're using it as a family vehicle, it might be harder to get a seat in and out, so I'm just warning you there. The trunk is big, and the rear seats fold down 60-40. However, the release is in the back seat versus in the trunk. Again, these are little things that you're going to want to note. The front space is classic Toyota. All of the knobs, buttons, and switches are physical, including the dimmer. All the steering wheel controls are very, very clicky and easy to use. The gauge cluster is very legible, easy to read. There's literally no clutter on here to confuse you, and the shifter's manual, the drive modes, the seat heater toggles are physical, so when you leave the car and you leave it on low, when you get back in, it turns right back on. No digital crap to worry about. The infotainment is the big change. They moved to Toyota Connected, and while they don't throw the most processing power at the lower trim levels of the lower-end vehicles of this type, everything works with a little bit of lag. Android Auto, Apple CarPlay is wireless. It connects instantaneously. All the core functions work good, and if you opt for the JBL audio system, which I would recommend for about $600, it really is good for a car of this price range. It's equivalent of that of the Mazda 3 in many ways, and of course the Civic, and I think it outdoes the Civic quite a bit in most usage cases. I think that's definitely an option you'll want to check if you're going to be stuck with this car for a long period of time. You'll really enjoy it. In terms of seating comfort, there's decent adjustability, but again, you don't have lumbar support. The things that you expect in this price range, and obviously there are multiple trims to look at with the Corolla. You know, when you get to the lower end, it's basically stripped down. You can move up and add some of the safety suite and all-wheel drive on the lower trim levels, and when you get up to XLE, it's basically maxed out. Aside from the audio system, you have to add, and you can push this up to like $30,000. Somewhere in the middle, you're going to be happy, but I'm going to take you in the shop. I'm going to talk about briefly the hybrid system. Then we're going to talk about is this car really relevant now to drive? Oh my gosh, you guys. I just stumbled upon the most amazing channel ever, Savage Geese. They're like totally crushing it with their fab automotive content and wicked sense of humor. So like do yourself a favor and hit that subscribe button, ring the notification bell, and join me as we ride the waves of car culture together. Trust me, hun. You'll be so glad you did. The Toyota Corolla Hybrid. We haven't done a video on this before, and it's a little bit special because the hybrid drivetrain helps you to do a few things. One, it's a little bit more refined in terms of when you're spinning this thing around in EV-only mode, and it helps to get much better fuel efficiency. The regular non-hybrid sedan is a 2-liter. This is a 1.8, although it only makes about 138 horsepower. You're not buying it because of that. When you look at the underbody, this is on TNGAC, their compact car platform, the smallest thing they essentially make, at least in the North American market. You have strut front and you have multi-link rear, and it's all steel. Everything is steel here, and when you look at it, it's not all that impressive. I mean, it just looks like a basic car underneath, which means the pros, of course, the parts are going to be available forever. You're going to be able to get any part from this from parts stores. There's nothing esoteric about it. Your tires, they're small. 16-inch tires. These Yokohamas cost next to nothing compared to like the 18 and 19-inch tires on the upper trim levels of many other cars. Now, the kind of the drawback is if you get the XLE, you can't get e-all-wheel drive, so you got to go to some of the lower trim levels, at least at this point. The e-all-wheel drive puts an electric motor in the back. It's not connected through a driveshaft, and it purely exists there through the hybrid drivetrain system or the battery pack, the lithium-ion pack, to power that rear motor in inclement weather. So if you need better traction off the line or you're stuck in snow, it can send power to the back, and it's more efficient than having the parasitic loss, of course, of a driveshaft and a mechanical coupling in the back, traditional. Of course, it weighs a bit more, but the fuel economy doesn't seem to take that much of a hit. This is also a more slippery car in terms of drag compared to previous Corollas. Most everything's covered up underneath, and of course, it's not as slippery as like the Prius, but again, this is about low running costs. It's that appliance, and the only real red flag on this thing when you look at it overall is there's some rust on the rear sway bar, and this is a brand new car, so there's some rust on spots. I don't know if it's because it was submerged in water. It is a press car, but something to take note. But other than that, all the fasteners are really high quality on like the subframe area. It's a car that if you have to work on, you're not gonna worry about it in 10 years from now. So let's take this for a drive and see how it operates. Oh boy, Mark, what do you have me in now? I had you in eco mode, which is probably where it should be. No, I put this back into normal, Mark. Now let me turn off your traction stability control, Jack, so you can really feel it. That is just tremendous performance. Tremendous. She sounds good. Let's never do that again. I'm gonna put you back in eco mode, and so you just ruined my fuel economy that I spent two days building up. I'm still getting 49.8 miles per gallon after that 40G acceleration. In my normal driving, in my real world normal driving. So like a complete asshole for everybody. No, I'm just driving normal, like on our typical commute that we do. I got 60 miles per gallon. That is exceptional. That 50 miles per gallon that we're at right now is because I was driving 95 to 100 on the highway for like, you know, an hour. For medical reasons, right? Yeah, no, no, I was driving like, you know, fast on the highway. So the worst you're gonna get is 50 miles per gallon. And if you're really, really good, like, and I drove this car kind of like I did my Gen 1 Insight, where you're, you learn how to get better fuel economy with it, because that's what you do. Basically, you make a game out of it. Yeah, and it returns such amazing fuel economy. It rides great. It really does ride great. It's isolated out most, you don't feel anything in the steering. You feel absolutely nothing. The steering inputs are good. It feels like a, I don't want to say it's quiet, because on the highway, it's loud. There's not no acoustic laminated glass or anything in here. But it feels very, very good to drive. Although it is the ultimate appliance. This is what Toyota does the best. And if you're buying this for around $27,000, $25,000 to $27,000 as a hybrid, I completely understand why you would love this and drive it forever, because you don't have to worry about it. You have to do zilch to it, Jack. And you can get this as all-wheel drive. Not in the lower trim levels. Yeah, in the lower trim levels, which is weird. And compared to the BZ4X that we just drove, this is a much better and probably less costly green option for you. My problem with this car, as we discussed off camera, is that it is old. It is very, very old. So from an interior perspective, it is a pile in comparison to both the Elantra, which you can also get as a hybrid, and the Civic, which is coming out as a hybrid. But even the 1.5 or 2 liter is still nearly as efficient as this. It's like 40 miles to the gallon or high 30s versus 50, which is, yes, it's a big difference, but still a very efficient car. And in comparison, the Civic is quieter than this, rides probably every bit as good, far more usable interior space as well. Why are you not bringing up the Mazda 3? Well, Mazda 3 is also a good option, but it has the same problems this has. It's small. I'm saying peak usability. The Civic is almost a CUV in practicality compared to this thing. Okay, I'm not going to argue the fact that the Civic is really a better car than this because it's newer and there's things that this can't do and doesn't do that the Civic does. I haven't driven the hybrid Civic, obviously, but the fuel economy thing here, if that's what you're out for, the Civic cannot touch this. And I would argue, too, in terms of reliability, there's zero, negative zero to do to this. And that's why you would buy it. I would never even consider the Elantra as an option for somebody that's going to buy this and keep it for 10 plus years, given everything that's going on with that brand. I wouldn't touch an Elantra with a 10-foot pole right now or any Hyundai if I wanted to keep it past 10 years. I agree with you, but I think the buyers of this car, this is going to be either a family vehicle or the car that is everything to you, right? This is a lot of money to most people in the mid-20s. I feel like you are getting more car with either the Kia or Hyundai equivalent or the Honda versus this. And I think that's my problem with this is it is expensive. And you have the Prius. The Prius is an equivalently equipped Prius. An XLE is four grand more than this. And I feel like you're getting a lot more car there as well. It's a newer vehicle. It looks great. It's a hatch. And you get the same fuel account. But it's still a Prius. There's that brand. Okay. I'm not going to argue with that. You're right. But if you don't want a Prius, then. And you could probably actually get one of these. Yeah. I would say you could get one of them pretty easily. I don't know about the hybrid, honestly, with everything that's going on. With everything that's going on with Toyota's supply chain with hybrids and battery electric stuff. I don't know if you could get this, honestly. But the Corolla is always going to have. It's like a Civic, right? If you if you don't want to spend a lot of money on a car that you're going to keep forever, what are the like three cars that always come to mind? Camry, Corolla, Civic. Yeah. And maybe an Accord. Yeah. So that's that's where this thing really stands out to me. And I thought about this from the perspective of, OK, I'm young and I literally either I'm going to school and I'm going to work. This is I'm not buying an aspirational purchase at this point. I literally I just need something that cost me no money. That'll get me to work. And I don't feel like I'm in a horrible like it doesn't feel like when a Nissan Sentra or something that's associated with like, you know, buy here, pay here a lot or like garbage can. Nobody's going to look at you and judge you poorly for having a Corolla. It's like the smart choice, you know, and I love that about this car as much as yes, it's not as good as the Civic here. And some of the flair, there's zero flair to this car, which by default there isn't on a Corolla typically. But I mean, I'd be curious to compare it to the Prius. I know you brought that up and that's a hard one to argue. Four thousand dollars is a lot of money. It is. You know, it's a substantial percentage of the price of this vehicle. But I think if you can and you're looking at you want a Toyota product, you don't want a Honda. I feel like that price delta, at least in the higher trim levels, is a hard, hard argument not to just hop in the Prius. But the fact that you can get this in the low 20s, it's just a bottom basement Corolla hybrid model with all wheel drive does make it a compelling purchase. But Mark, I think we've rambled enough in this vehicle. You want to shut me up with the song? Yeah, let me show you my favorite thing about Toyota products. I love the beeping, Jack. It's my favorite thing. As I drive this off the road. Yeah, I'm sure the car doesn't just crash and be like, hey, don't ever take, don't ever do anything in this car. I'm going to beep. Final thoughts on the Toyota Corolla. Now, clearly in the drive, we're debating the relevancy of this car as newer cars have come out to replace it. And the other hard part to talk about is all the engineering budget for most companies have gone to the SUV and SUV world, which also means the prices have gone up quite a bit. When you look at the average transaction price of $45,000, I completely understand that a majority, at least of North America, the United States doesn't want to piss away $40,000, $45,000 on a new car. So the Corolla brings all of the usability functions of an appliance vehicle. Maybe you don't have the money to get an aspirational car or that fancy car yet, and you just need something that works. And I think this brand new, the hybrid delivers basically everything that you can want. Amazing fuel efficiency, literally no running costs, tires are cheap, brakes, you're never going to have to do unless you're an idiot, you know, long oil change intervals, you know, over 10,000 miles. Probably if you run the right oil, it's just going to be a no brainer. And now that they've updated the technology and you can option a decent audio system in here, it's just the joyous place to be in that if you have other things to focus on in your life, you don't have to worry and focus on this car. Is it the most glamorous thing? Is it the most like shouty thing? Is it going to impress your neighbors? Hell no, but you know, we don't all need that. And that's what I really like about this Corolla. It does everything mostly well. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next video.