Toyota Auris Touring Sports Hybrid - A Neat-Looking Car

Frugal petrol-electric load carrier targets the estate-hungry fleet market

There’s a small but solid market base for traditional estates. Fleet buyers snap up most of them, and Toyota reckons that more than 60 per cent of these more practical Aurises will see company car parks.

Like the Auris hatch, the Touring Sports is a neat-looking car with a pleasing hint of the rakish, but its most impressive feature is a hybrid drivetrain and battery pack accommodated without stealing luggage space. Indeed, its 1658-litre seats-down capacity is close to class best. The tailgate is yawningly big, the seats fold easily and there’s a dual-level load deck. So it’s practical. Besides the 1.8 hybrid, there are 1.3 and 1.6-litre petrol engines, a 1.4 diesel and four trim levels, the priciest, Excel, being sampled here.

The Touring Sports is a neat-looking car with a pleasing hint of the rakish

The Auris estate has a good, supple ride that’s possibly even better than the hatch’s, despite the double wishbone rear suspension’s need to cater for widely varying weights. At moderate speeds it resists under-steer tidily and has a fair bit of grip, but the steering is vague and the car feels as if it’s already carrying a load, which in a sense it is with the battery beneath the back seat. This is partly down to the tires, according to deputy chief engineer Satoshi Tanaka, and some brands provide better feel than others. The test car wore Dunlop SP Sport Fastresponse rubber on its optional 17in wheels; standard 15s reduce the hybrid’s CO₂ emissions from 92g/km to an impressive 85g/km.

But a hybrid powertrain is not the best choice for a beast of burden. Its 105lb ft is often left wanting, despite the electric motor’s boostings, and the belt-drive CVT has the engine revving to a continuous blare when accelerating. And when your estate is laden, this is a sound you’ll be hearing pretty often. That’s doubly unfortunate, because the Toyota is otherwise fairly hushed.

The Auris estate has a good, supple ride that’s possibly even better than the hatch’s

This more commodious Auris is convenient and well equipped, if undermined by a slabby cliff of a dashboard presenting a surprisingly uncoordinated mix of shapes, materials and textures. There’s not much wrong with its functionality, but this fascia falls short of the classy elegance of many competitors.

If you need a voluminous load bay and a well kitted, smooth-riding car, the Auris Touring Sports might be worth considering. But probably not as a hybrid, despite its impressive economy promise, because it doesn’t have the torque or refinement to pull big loads with a diesel’s ease. It’s just too noisy under load, and not an especially stout lugger.

If you need a voluminous load bay and a well kitted, smooth-riding car, the Auris Touring Sports might be worth considering.

Keen drivers won’t enjoy the hybrid’s uncertain steering, and though solidly constructed, the dash’s clunky design is a curious contrast to the slick contours of the exterior. Better, then, to consider the diesel or the petrol 1.6, which are more keenly price besides. Both, however, might struggle to make their case against the best of the opposition.