New Toyota C-HR EV makes Shanghai Motor Show debut

This is the new Toyota C-HR EV, which has been unveiled by the Japanese brand at the Shanghai Motor Show.

The debut of the fully electric small SUV comes a year after Toyota confirmed plans for the vehicle at the Beijing show. The new model gets a different front-end treatment, reflecting the reduced need for cooling, with slightly more body-coloured material and an inverted grille design that will help it to stand out from conventionally powered C-HRs.

• All the latest from the Shanghai Motor Show

The C-HR is the first pure-electric vehicle to be launched on the Toyota New Global Architecture platform - the same set of chassis parts that underpins the regular vehicle, as well as the likes of the Corolla and Prius.

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Toyota has not issued any technical information on the vehicle, however, so there are no details on performance or range. The firm continues to insist that the model is for the Chinese market only, with no plans for it to be sold globally.

Toyota sees the C-HR EV as a key part of its strategy in China, where electric vehicle sales are booming and there are regulatory incentives to force manufacturers to have a certain percentage of their range electrified. As such, the new model will be built in China and its batteries and electric motors will be sourced from local suppliers. 

The new model will be sold in two forms, each tied to one of Toyota’s joint ventures in China. The Guangzhou-Toyota version will continue to be called C-HR EV, while FAW-Toyota will sell the car as the Izoa EV.

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