Mike Dobuski
@mikedobuski
Tech reporter at ABC News, on the radio. Formerly CBS, WFUV. M Night Shyamalan defender:
My second very orange vehicle of the month is… one I’ve been meaning to try for quite some time now.
So a mixed bag with this one. Some great features (dual wireless chargers! Hard buttons!) some baffling ones (no glovebox? Regen braking doesn’t bring it to a full stop) and some downright infuriating ones (you get better range in competitors, and at least they know when to shut UP).
This, from what I understand, is a Toyota thing, not a specific C-HR thing. But as a person who has nearly every notification in his life silenced, it would keep me from buying this car. I know driver attention is a growing problem, but other brands calibrate this stuff in a far less annoying way.
The C-HR beeps when you get too close to something It beeps when traffic is crossing closely in front of you It beeps if you take too long to check your passenger side mirror It beeps if you put your arm in front of the camera on the steering column Some of this is turn-offable. But not enough.
I assume that’s just a quirk of this specific car, and honestly with the driving I do I could probably get by with a max 260-270 mile range. But the thing I truly hate is the overly aggressive driver monitoring.
Charging is nice and fast, with Tesla’s 350kWh units taking the C-HR from 24% to 80% in about half an hour. Would’ve been a total breeze were it not for an issue where without fail, regardless of charger or location, I had to unplug and then replug before charging commenced.
Some thoughts on the C-HR. Most of my time was spent sitting at about 200 miles of range (some of that is air conditioning, some down to some lackluster range figure). I know there’s discourse over “how much range you really need,” but still - not the greatest feeling with a road trip ahead of you.
Live footage of me testing the C-HR in the middle of a tornado (???) this evening
iPhone camera processing is definitely messing with it in some way - it’s way less red in reality. But an interesting flake going on too:
Will be marking July 4th in this little guy. First observation: if you get WAY too close to something the parking sensors start to harmonize
My physical media journey has led me places I wouldn’t go with a gun
