Why Toyota Discontinued The C-HR In The US After 5 Years

The Toyota C-HR was a bit of an oddity in Toyota's recent lineup. While modern Toyotas aren't exactly "boring," when it comes to styling, your average Camry or RAV4 is definitely playing it safe. The C-HR was funky and "stylish" (depending on who you asked) and was almost certainly aimed at a younger audience who either wanted a car that was "hip" and "fresh" and other fun words and descriptors. 

The C-HR was originally a concept car for late Toyota brand Scion, hence the hyphen in the name and a design that is diametrically opposed to Toyota's mainstream lineup. "C-HR" stands for "Coupe High-Rider" in case you were curious, despite the fact that it has four doors. But with Scion folding in 2016 and the C-HR very close to production, Toyota decided to take the shiny new C-HR into its loving arms for the 2018 model year. The Scion iM was a similar story. That car became the Corolla hatchback, a model which exploded in popularity. The Scion FR-S (now the 86) followed suit.

Even under the careful tutelage of the greater Toyota brand, the C-HR didn't quite fit in. It's almost like Toyota made the exact opposite of what people actually wanted. It was shaped like an SUV (mostly) but it didn't do anything an SUV should do. It didn't have all-wheel drive and it was never an option over its entire production run. It achieved slightly better fuel economy than Toyota's staple RAV4 at 29 combined miles per gallon. The RAV4 scored an estimated 25 combined miles per gallon and that's with AWD. Next to the slightly smaller Camry, the C-HR loses out to the sedan's 34 combined miles per gallon. 

So it's not particularly fuel efficient, and it's lacking in options many people want in a crossover, but is it at least a competently performing car? Prepare to be disappointed. The C-HR's 2-liter 144 horsepower engine was the only powerplant every offered for the goofy looking crossover. According to a road test by Car and Driver, a 2018 C-HR could make the zero to 60 miles per hour sprint in a positively lethargic 11 seconds. That's as fast as its continuously variable transmission was willing to go.

If it isn't fuel efficient and can't get out of its own way, was it at least a good value? You can already see where this is going. No it was not. The newest generation of RAV4 was unveiled in late 2018 for the 2019 model year and immediately invalidated everything small thing the C-HR had going for it. A 2019 model year C-HR started at $22,265. The base model RAV4 started at $25,500 and adding AWD made the MSRP climb ever so slightly to $26,900. Fuel economy also got much better, with the 2019 AWD RAV4 achieving 28 combined miles per gallon. 

So not only was it not much cheaper than a car with significantly more options, the small amount of fuel economy bragging rights it had over the RAV4 became all for naught. Any amount of charm it earned by looking outlandish was immediately betrayed by a slow, inefficient car with limited options. 

All of those factors amounted to sales poison for Toyota. The brand couldn't sell C-HRs if its life depended on it. In 2019, Toyota sold 48,930 C-HRs. Outside of any context, that doesn't sound abysmal. However, when you compare it to the RAV4's 448,071 sales for the same year, it starts to paint a bad picture for the C-HR. The 2020 offering wasn't any better. To be fair, that was a bad year for humanity in general, but the C-HR sold 42,936 units while the RAV4 sold 430,387. It's actually impressive that Toyota managed to sell ten times as many RAV4s. 

All told, the C-HR couldn't hold a candle to anything else Toyota was making at the time. It wasn't fast, it wasn't efficient, it wasn't cheap, and it wasn't selling. Any one of those factors by itself could lead to Toyota giving the C-HR the boot. But all four reasons were a hurdle too great for the C-HR to continue in Toyota's lineup. 2022 marked the last year of the C-HR.