2022 Toyota C-HR vs 2023 BMW X1

What's the difference?

If you love the look of Toyota’s emerging GR Sport range, but when it comes down to it you just need a frugal car to kick around town, the C-HR GR Sport fills that oddly specific niche. For those who prefer comfort over looks, there’s always the identically-priced Koba hybrid, which would still be my pick of the range.

This new BMW X1 feels like it's been built by a team of parents because it’s one of the most practical and easy to use small SUVs my family and I have ever lived with and, trust me, they’ve seen a lot of test cars come through the Berry garage.

We loved the roomy interior with high ceilings, the clever storage everywhere from the giant door pockets to the floating centre armrest up front and big boot for our pram.

Entry and exit is easy through the tall and wide doors, something my back was thankful for every time I had to put our baby into her car seat.

Driving is easy, with great visibility and the engine that comes in the xDrive20i M Sport makes this X1 sporty and fun to pilot, too.  

The only drawback is the price, it's a bit expensive but at the same time you are getting a high-quality feeling SUV.

The GR-Sport is very Japanese. While this car’s sporty Korean rivals lean into two-tone trims and blacked out plastics, this wily C-HR goes all Midnight Club with excessive amounts of chrome, a chunky bumper re-work, and big contrasting spoiler bits.

It’s certainly different, and some may like it, but it isn’t for me. Maybe if you really wanted to match your SUV with your Yaris GR in the garage this is the perfect fit.

Tastebuds aside, the C-HR is still a very good-looking small SUV, even several years into its tenure on the Australian market.

During my week with the car, I had several comments on its red lustre and overall design, and surprisingly few on the overwhelming amount of chrome.

Compared to rivals, the C-HR admittedly still cuts a sleek silhouette with the raked roof, tall bonnet line, exacerbated length courtesy of a relatively long wheelbase, and a chiselled rear liftgate with attractive light designs.

It’s contemporary and eye-catching. Inside, this only continues to a degree. The shape of the cabin is comprised of dramatic angles and a swoopy dash.

And like other recent Toyota SUVs, there’s a lot of attention to detail in the pattern work which runs across the dash, into the doors, and even the roof elements carry the rhomboidal pattern which seems to define the C-HR’s character.

Despite this, the interior hardly feels cutting edge, with some average plastics, a monotone colour approach with grey on piano black, and some ordinary touchpoints.

It’s unfortunate to see the analogue dash elements, which combine with the steering wheel for a last-generation feel in the cabin. Aside from the seats, there’s not much in here which differentiates the GR Sport from its siblings.

At least with this car’s 2020 model year update, the lacklustre multimedia screen has been replaced with a far more modern looking and feeling unit.

The cool interior and exterior design treatment also leads into some practicality issues, which we’ll touch on next.

This current generation of X1 arrived in late 2022 and finally looked more like part of the BMW SUV family with tall and boxy styling rather than the sleek, but raised hatchback it seemed to be before.

My test car had 'M Portimao Blue' metallic paint - a flattering hue that showed off the X1’s lines as you can see in the images.

I like the X1’s oversized grille which suits the angry looking front bumper that comes with the M Sport inclusions, but balanced by pretty headlights.

Inside, the X1 xDrive20i M Sport is modern and minimalist in design. I like the floating centre armrest in between the driver and front passenger and the way it creates a feeling of more space and adds more storage.

The double screens are nice, but we’re seeing this same design and tech now in budget cars such as the Chery Omoda 5 and Haval H6. BMW needs to be even slicker and more stylish if it wants to maintain its edge.  

If you like your SUVs sporty looking then check out the BMW X2, X4 and X6. These are coupe style SUVs (but with four doors).

There are a lot of ways in which the C-HR is more practical than its Corolla hatch sibling, but some areas where it could definitely do better in the small SUV space.

While many will appreciate the ride height on offer from the C-HR, the front of the cabin feels quite claustrophobic thanks to the abundance of black trim, and the design of the dash cladding and centre console means it suffers from the same lack of storage as its Corolla relation.

The big swooping piece of plastic trim down the centre only houses two large bottle holders, a small centre console box, and that’s about it.

Where this area meets the dash, there’s a lot of cladding bits where there should be a storage cutaway. There’s even an odd little shelf, but I’m not sure what it’s for because it’s tiny and hard to access. Odd.

Like the Corolla, this car’s climate controls float atop the angled dash piece, tastefully finished in that signature rhomboidal pattern.

And thankfully the new and improved screen is much easier to use than the small one it replaces from the pre-update model. It even has dials for volume and tuning as well as toggles for temperature and fan speed.

There are decent bottle holders in the doors with smallish pockets, but that’s where storage in the front cabin ends.

The seats are comfortable, adjustable, and offer a decent view of the road up front, although I’m not sure how well the synthetic suede trim will age in this GR Sport compared to the hardy synthetic leather in the Koba.

The back seat is interesting. For a start, the rear door is smaller than the front, another element designed to make the C-HR look and feel more like a coupe than an SUV.

But rear access is impeded further by the common Toyota issue of the door itself not extending anywhere near a 90-degree angle. This may make it tricky to fit child seats or load luggage into the rear row.

The seats continue with the GR Sport synthetic suede, but interestingly the seat base is almost in line with the front seats, instead of significantly elevated like it usually is in a small SUV.

This is good because it leaves plenty of headroom, but the space feels closed-in anyway thanks to the very high belt-line, tiny and heavily tinted rear windows, and abundance of black trim.

It’s hardly the most pleasant place to be as an adult, and kids might not even be able to peer out of the windows they’re so high.

There is, again, a lack of storage for rear passengers, with just a single bottle holder in the doors, small pockets on the back of the front seats, and no power outlets or directional air vents.

Boot space comes in at 318 litres (VDA). That’s small for the segment, but the space is quite useful thanks to the lack of wheel arch claddings on the inside, so it’s more useful than it first appears.

My family found the X1 xDrive20i to be one of the most practical small SUVs we’ve lived with thanks to its spacious interior, clever cabin storage and plenty of convenient features.

I need to point out the door pockets - they’re the biggest I’ve ever seen. They’re more door buckets than pockets and super helpful over the week not just for bottles but for everything else that I needed to dump out of my own pockets and into them.

The floating centre armrest up front looks like an ironing board and has a tonne of storage underneath.

The wireless charging is handy but the holster is a bit un-user friendly in terms of access, but it held the phone tight and stopped it becoming a projectile when driving, which is what you want.

There are power outlets galore, too, proximity unlocking, and a gesture tailgate.

Legroom in the back is excellent and there’s so much headroom throughout. 

The X1’s 540-litre boot capacity is excellent for the class and meant we could fit our baby’s big pram and the seven-year old’s scooter and still have room for the grocery shopping.

In the space of driving this SUV and writing this review the list price of the X1 xDrive20i M Sport has risen from $68,900 to $73,400. 

That price hike was part of an increase across the model range and all grades now cost more, even the entry-level sDrive18i which is now 13K less than the xDrive20i M Sport.

But you’re paying for the more powerful, athletic and only all-wheel drive one in the X1 range. 

You’re also getting loads of standard features in the xDrive20i M Sport. 

There’s the 10.25-inch instrument display with three different styles for your speedo and other gauges, while flowing into that is the 10.7-inch media screen with sat nav, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and digital radio. 

There are LED headlights, plus proximity unlocking, a head-up display, dual-zone climate control, a power tailgate, sports seats (the front ones are heated and power adjustable) and adaptive cruise control.

As the name suggests the xDrive20i M Sport is fitted with BMW M Sport goodies as standard. These include adaptive M Suspension, M leather steering wheel, M roof rails, M headliner and M interior trim. 

My test car also had $8900 worth of options fitted including the sunroof, Harman Kardon stereo, the ‘Vernasca Black’ leather seats and 20-inch M light alloy multi-spoke wheels.

Is it good value? Well, you do get a lot of nice things here but at a $13,000 premium over the entry grade, plus the $3500 price jump in the past few weeks, I’d say the value isn’t great.

If you’re trying to keep the cost down, the sDrive18i is the budget pick. 

The C-HR GR Sport has a single engine choice, a 1.8-litre Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder petrol hybrid, which drives the front wheels via a continuously variable automatic transmission.

This engine is renowned for its efficiency and ease-of-use, but with just 90kW of combined power output, it seems to fly in the face of what this car is trying to communicate from the outside.

It’s not just the powertrain either. There are no performance enhancements to be found anywhere. No bigger brakes and barely tweaked suspension. This car represents Toyota’s Gazoo Racing (GR) in name only.

The X1 xDrive20i M Sport has a more powerful engine than the grades below it in the range - it’s a 2.0-litre, turbo-petrol, four-cylinder making 150kW and 300Nm.

A seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission does the shifting for you.   

This is also the only all-wheel drive X1 currently in the range.

Toyota’s 1.8-litre Atkinson-cycle hybrid engine is renowned for its fuel efficiency, and on this front at least the C-HR GR Sport delivers.

It has an official combined cycle fuel consumption figure of 4.3L/100km which is excellent. And on my week-long test which had a good mix of freeway and urban driving the car’s computer returned a real-world figure of 5.1L/100km.

I think any other small SUV would have trouble beating that, even Subaru’s hybrid XV couldn’t best 7.3L/100km in my most recent long-term test.

You can fuel the GR Sport’s 43-litre tank with base-grade 91RON unleaded petrol.

BMW says that after a combination of open and urban roads the X1 xDrive20i M Sport will use 7.4L/100km.

In my own testing my driving was mainly city and suburban, which uses quite a lot of fuel. We did dashes to birthday parties, the grocery shopping, school drop offs and all of it in busy traffic.  

I recorded 8.9L/100km, but that’s not overly thirsty considering I was carrying two car seats with children, and all the gear that goes with them. 

A small 45 litre tank means the xDrive 20i M Sport has a range of about 608km, which is on the shorter side.

If you’ve driven any recent Toyota hybrid model, not much is amiss here. This might come as a surprise given the aggro looks of the GR Sport from the outside, but from behind the wheel it’s remarkably tame.

In fact, I’d say it’s far too tame, with this car sharing the same problem as the rest of the C-HR range, in that it feels underpowered.

To make matters worse, if anything the big chrome wheels and lower, harder suspension ruin an otherwise pleasant ride, adding a fair bit of extra sharpness and unpleasant road feel compared to other variants in the range.

It’s not worth the trade-off. This car doesn’t feel quick, just the same but with a measurably worse ride, and little extra positives in the way of feel or handling. The smooth ride of the identically-priced Koba is far preferable in my opinion.

Still, the 1.8-litre four-cylinder engine paired with this hybrid electric set-up remains one of the best on the market, with its seamless blend of silent and smooth electric torque delivery and the backup of the engine. Just don’t expect it to be rapid.

Like most recent Toyotas which share the 'TNGA' chassis philosophy, the steering tune is lovely, balancing low-speed ease with high-speed feel, and the wheels all the way out to the edges of the chassis make for a solid amount of grip on the road, all-wheel drive or not. If nothing else, the C-HR handles a fair bit better than most of its rivals.

Visibility is a tad limited out the rear no thanks to that high spoiler lip of the tailgate, and the high belt line generally means on occasion you’ll be trying to peer over the nose or sides to make sure everything is aligned in parking scenarios.

Of course, making the most of Toyota’s signature hybrid drive is central to the experience of driving this car, and it’s foolproof.

The analogue dial cluster will help guide you with the first ‘eco’ bar essentially being the purely electric part of the acceleration journey, with the engine entering further up as more is required, and as it reaches its peak, the electrical assistance comes back in to give it a slight boost.

Interestingly, the C-HR has slightly different software from the Corolla, replacing the hybrid coach with a percentage of purely electric drive per trip which is a telling feature. Stuck in traffic? Expect some 60 per cent electric. Think of all the fuel you’ll save.

On a final note, the C-HR shares the same issue with all Toyota hybrids, in that it misses a lot of the efficiency on the freeway, and the rattly Atkinson-cycle engine is quite loud when pushed, breaking that semi-electrified immersion you’ll become used to around town.

Only a week before testing the X1 xDrive20i M Sport I’d been reviewing a BMW 330e and going from the 3 Series to the SUV was like changing my seating position from being in a bathtub to sitting on a bar stool. 

Actually, the X1’s seat is far more comfortable than a stool and the refined quality is what you’d expect from BMW.

But compared to the low slung 330e the visibility and the upright driving angle of the X1 is very different.

It’s something you want in an SUV that puts practicality before performance.

As much as I liked the sporty sedan, as a dad I preferred being able to see better when parking in the X1, and this made life a lot easier.

Easy is a good word to describe what the X1 xDrive20i M Sport is like to drive - from that visibility to the light steering, comfortable ride and that great engine with all-wheel drive.

That 2.0-litre four-cylinder has more than enough grunt to run up the steep hills in my neighbourhood without struggling, the transmission is smooth and the all-wheel drive system adds a bit more reassurance in the wet weather.

All of this makes for an easy, enjoyable drive. 

The X1xDrive20i M Sport like all X1s scored the maximum five-star ANCAP rating in 2022.

A score of 88 per cent was given to child protection and the ANCAP report found that a 10-year old and six-year old in the second row had adequate to good protection in a front offset collision and a side impact. 

For child seats there are two ISOFIX points and three top tether anchor mounts across the second row.

As you would expect from a model that’s hasn’t even been around a year yet, the X1 xDrive20i M Sport has the very latest in advanced safety tech.

There’s AEB which is operational from 5.0km/h to 210km/h and also works at road junctions. There’s lane keeping assistance, blind-spot warning and rear cross-traffic alert. 

There are curtain airbags for front and rear passengers, a centre airbag for the driver and co-pilot along with frontal airbags plus side chest and side pelvis airbags.

The C-HR range is covered by Toyota’s five year and unlimited kilometre warranty, while the hybrid battery components are covered for up to 10 years.

The servicing, as with most current Toyota models, is a real strong point, with each service due every 12 months or 15,000km coming in at just $200 for the first four services.

The best in the small SUV segment? Unless you count some full-electric models which offer free servicing, then yes, it is.

The X1 xDrive20i M Sport is covered by BMW’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty.

A five-year/80,000km service plan through BMW will cost $2150. You’ll be looking to pay an average of $430 per service every 12 months.