It doesn't matter how many electric and hybrid cars I drive, I am still pleasantly surprised at how quiet they are when they start and was still shocked by the Corolla Sedan.
The petrol engine didn't kick in until I was doing about 40km/h or if I was accelerating quickly at lower speeds. So just like in the hatch model, I could do a lot of pootling around town or school runs without really using any fuel. I drove my daughter around the block to sleep and sat with just the battery running the aircon while she slept, without using fuel! You will save yourself money and the planet using this car! I enjoyed being able to explain to my daughter using the great visual in the media screen that shows you the power going to and from the battery and engine, so you can see what you are using while you are driving or stopped which we both found fascinating.
The media system in the Toyota Corolla Sedan has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It was still quite a basic system but having those was a big improvement.
In the back of the Corolla Sedan, I could fit two child seats and installing them was made tricky by the top tether anchorages being in the fixed parcel shelf behind headrests that don't move. With the low headroom, they were difficult to connect to and even more difficult to disconnect them!
I found the Toyota Corolla Hybrid Sedan quite a nippy little car to drive, I love how quiet it is, but most of all I was fascinated by the hybrid motor! It is such a nice feeling to not be burning money or polluting the environment when driving my daughter to sleep and sitting while she sleeps with the air-conditioning on.
The Toyota Corolla Hybrid Sedan scored a five-star ANCAP safety rating in 2019 and has seven airbags as standard.
BabyDrive Indepth - Storage
How big is the boot of the 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid Sedan?
It's pretty impressive!! When it is empty I could fit fifteen shopping bags in the boot. This is equal to the Kia Cerato sedan and one more than the Honda Civic sedan. In comparison, the Toyota Corolla Hatch fitted nine shopping bags.
The boot space and its functionality are really important. I like to have a big boot space and little side wells or areas I can divide things into. So something I don’t want to move around while I’m driving such as Tulsi’s lunch bag or her wet swimming gear can be sectioned off in a little well where it’s not going to spill or get squashed by the rest of the things in the boot.
Hooks for securing shopping bags to are also favourites of mine, I like being able to secure the bag containing more fragile things like eggs so they don’t move around on the journey.
I measure the boot space in freezer shopping bags, prams and dogs. Not because I think all there is to a mum’s life is food shopping, prams and dogs. (Although it can feel like it sometimes!!) But because these are visually mesurable items we can all associate with. For me, the car company boot measurement of litres is not an amount I can easily visualise and 400L in one car may differ in usability to that in another due to the configuration or shape of the space.
The Mountain Buggy Duet twin stroller fits in the boot with five shopping bags.
The Flexx tandem stroller fits in the boot with seven shopping bags.
The Mountain Buggy Urban Jungle single stroller fitted with eight shopping bag beside it.
The Mountain Buggy Nano compact stroller fitted with eleven shopping bags beside it.
The parcel shelf is fixed in the Corolla Sedan so you can't put a dog in the boot. The boot floor is nice and flat and has a thin carpet covering so I could do an emergency nappy change!
Storage in the cabin is quite compact. In the front, there are two cup holders in the central console, that can hold a reusable and disposable coffee cup. The central console storage box is very small and the lid doubles as your armrest.
In front of the gear lever is a small plastic phone tray with a USB socket beside it, but your wires have to hang down in the footwell which is rather annoying and there is no glasses case in the ceiling so my sunglasses had to go in there too, which isn't ideal.
The glove box is a good size and could easily hold my wallet and iPad.
The door bins in the front are small and would just hold a large refillable water bottle and there are no wells in the door handles.
In the back, the door bins are small but they will hold a large refillable water bottle and there are little wells in the door handles.
There is only one map pocket in the back of the Corolla; it is solid and would hold as well as just about conceal an iPad.
In a fold-down armrest in the central seatback are two cup holders. They were fine for holding a re-usable or disposable coffee cup.
BabyDrive Indepth - Noise
How noisy is the 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid Sedan?
Like the Toyota Corolla hybrid hatch, the Toyota Corolla Sedan hybrid is silent when it starts! It's quite unnerving at first and takes a bit to get used to. The Corolla's transition between the electric motor and petrol engine is quite smooth. I enjoyed driving my daughter around our suburb to get her to sleep knowing I wasn't burning through fuel and even better when I parked up or an hour while she slept and had the aircon running, I wasn't polluting and there wasn't a noisy engine running!
The reversing camera image in the Corolla is large and fills the whole screen and it is a little pixellated though.
There is lane departure warning in the Corolla Sedan and there is a button on the right side of your steering wheel that turns it off. It beeps to alert you when you drift out of lane, which I found to be a little sensitive and can disturb your sleeping passengers.
The cruise control buttons are on the right side on the steering wheel. They are simple to use and though I found the Corolla's cruise control to be very accurate on motorways it was not great on 60km/h undulating roads. Weirdly, I had a lot of incidences over the week I tested this Corolla where the cruise control just wouldn't work at all.
There is also the distance to empty displayed on the screen in front of the steering wheel and a digital display of the speed limit on the road you are on and it flashes up red when you exceed the speed limit in the right-hand corner.
The media system in the Corolla Sedan is still an old fashioned looking and basic system to navigate.
It now has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto which is an improvement on the Corolla Hatch I tested previously.
Toyota media systems tend to have the screen divided in three and you can press on the relevant section to go straight to that screen which is handy.
Becoming a parent I soon realised there are some noises and sounds I feel are unnecessary and I could happily live without if it meant my baby stayed asleep!!
That often the distraction of my screaming, distressed baby is more dangerous when driving than not having a lane departure warning for example.
If it is the lane departure warning beeping that creates distress with my baby then which is safest?
It’s where I think we need to be able to strike a balance and choose when we can mute the warnings or swap them to a vibration in the steering wheel or flashing light perhaps?
A lot of these noises come with the increase in technology and especially linked to safety features and alerts. For me these all have their place.
Another thing I have realised is I spend my time in a lot more places where small children roam, parks, beaches, play gyms, swimming lessons, daycare centre etc. I have become more aware that when I’m reversing or manouvering in the car parks I have to tripple check for small children running around behind me or being in my blind spot when reversing. For this I LOVE reversing cameras, I just don’t like their beeping sounds!!
I have become so much more aware of safety and potential accidents or hazards since having a child and so I love the peace of mind that I get from the cameras and sensors combined with my own vision from windows and mirrors as I don’t trust cameras alone.
You can lock the doors and windows from the control panel on the driver's door, which is great while you are driving with kids in the back.
The windows and doors are quite quiet when you open and close them. I found you can come to a stop with the engine still running and get out of the car without sounding any alarms. The indicators are lovely and quiet in the Corolla sedan too.
Since becoming a mum I spend A LOT of time parked up somewhere with a nice view while my daughter is asleep in the back! If it's hot I need to leave the engine running and the aircon on but I do like to get out and drink my cuppa tea in the fresh air while enjoying the fact my limbs are free from said dangling child!!
SO this is a very important test as I have found that sometimes I have been held hostage by a cars BEEEEPING alarms when I have taken off my seatbelt or opened the door while the engine is still running!! (I only stand outside the car, I am not a bad mother!!)
There is a seatbelt removal alarm and light alerts you on the dashboard too.
BabyDrive Indepth - Car Seats
How many child seats fit in the 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid Sedan?
There are three top tether anchorages, within plastic guides, behind the headrests and across the fixed parcel shelf. Being a sedan it has a low roofline and I found them quite difficult to access with the child seats in and extremely difficult to undo. The rear headrests are fixed in place, which contributed to this.
There are ISOFix points in the two outer rear seats, within plastic guides and easy to connect to.
The low roofline did make posting tall forward-facing child seats in a challenge! Once in I could fit two child seats, one in each of the outer seats and I couldn't fit between them.
With a rear-facing child seat installed we found a 180m driver could just fit in front.
You do need to watch heads when posting bub into their rear-facing child seats as the door frame is low. There is room to post bub from inside the car.
Australia being a country of weather extremes; blazing sun and torrential rain, mean you may find it easier to put Bub into their seat from inside the car sometimes. If it’s hot you can get the air-con going, cool the car down and not stand out in the sun while you fasten them in or shelter from the rain and not get soaked yourself whilst you’re doing it. So it is important to test whether Bub can be easily installed from either direction!
There is room to feed bub in the back if you only have one child seat installed. The seats are upholstered with a woven fabric with a wave stitch detail in the central panels. The woven seat upholstery does make cleaning the seats harder and removing child crumbs, spills and detritus than the plain leather of more expensive versions would.
BabyDrive Indepth - Drive & Comfort
How comfortable is the 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid Sedan for a family? And how good is the 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid Sedan to drive your family in?
In the front of the Corolla, the seats are quite comfortable. The basic model I tested had simple, manual adjustment and I found them fine for the week I tested it.
I found I could have a ponytail even though the headrests are not adjustable.
I had spent hours styling my hair this morning to get this ponytail just right too… said no new mum ever!!!
For a mum travelling in the back with bub, the seats are quite comfortable too and I had good headroom and I'm 162cm. The headrests in the back are not adjustable or removable so you can not easily attach a baby mirror to them.
For the first year of Tulsi’s life when we would go out as a family, if I wasn’t driving, I would travel in the back with Tulsi so it’s important to check the back seat comfort as you may be spending a lot of time in them! They were never something I gave any thought to before but I definitely notice a good or bad back seat now!
The steering wheel was fully adjustable in/out and up/down with manual adjustment.
There are four small air-conditioning vents across the front dashboard; two central ones under the media screen and one at either end of the dashboard. The Corolla doesn't have any aircon vents in the back, but we didn't find it a problem the week we tested it with our family as it is a relatively small car. The controls on the dashboard are nice and simple to use while driving.
Visibility in the Corolla Sedan is good, I found because of how low you sit on the road you can see immediately around you rather than in SUVs that can make it difficult to see close behind the car.
One thing I have noticed since being a mum is I hate it when I reach a destination or get home from being out and Tulsi has either done really well in the car or she is screaming her head off and I have done really well to keep it together for the entire journey (usually the latter!!) and it takes 10 minutes to park the car! It can be really stressful. Usually I dread parking new cars as they take longer in our tight apartment block carpark, but the Corolla was quite simple to park as it is small and low down and the reversing camera image is large!
There are lit vanity mirrors in both visors in the front but the visors are not extendable and there is no glasses case in the ceiling.
The interior light in the rear ceiling is well positioned so I could reach it from the driver's seat while driving!
I have found Tulsi does not like travelling in the dark in the car so if it gets dark whilst travelling then I reach back and turn the interior light on for her. So it’s really important for me that I can reach the rear ceiling light.
Also if I am traveling home and it is getting near to bed time and I DEFINITELY DON’T want her to fall asleep in the car as even a five-minute nap in the car means bed time is all over!!!! I lean back and pop the light on so it’s not dark and try to keep her awake!! Along with screaming/singing at the top of my voice!!!
It is also useful when there are lights situated above the doors where the handles are usually positioned. These are good for when putting baby into their child seats when visibility is poor, so you do not have to reach across them to a light situated in the ceiling centrally etc.
There are handles above both rear doors but they are positioned to hold a baby toy for rear-facing passengers but not forward-facing, as they are too far back.
The general aesthetics of the Corolla Sedan is it is simple and clean and pleasant, it has a lot of shiny black plastic, I think the technical term is high-gloss finish, which I m not a fan of because as soon as anyone touches it leaves every fingerprint!
BabyDrive Indepth - Safety
How safe is the 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid Sedan?
The Toyota Corolla Hybrid was given a five-star ANCAP safety rating in 2018. It scored 96% for adult occupancy protection, 83% for child occupant protection, 86% for vulnerable road user protection and 76% for safety assist.
In the child occupancy testing, it scored 14.91 out of 16 for dynamic front testing, 8/8 for dynamic side testing, 12/12 for child seat installation, 6/13 for onboard features.
In the frontal offset test, protection of the head of the 6-year-old dummy and neck of both the 6 and 10-year-old dummies was ‘adequate', while the protection offered to all other body regions was ‘good'.
Protection of both child dummies in the side impact test was ‘good', with maximum points scored.
The Toyota Corolla has seven airbags as standard; there is a driver’s knee airbag as well as dual frontal airbags and front side chest airbags and side head-protecting curtain airbags for the front and the rear side passengers.
All models of the Toyota Corolla come with lane departure warning (LDW), and lane keep assist (LKA), electronic brake-force distribution (EBD), anti-lock braking system (ABS), electronic stability control (ESC), and traction control, hill-start assist, active cornering assist, engine immobiliser, pre-collision safety system with pedestrian and cyclist detection, road sign (speed) assist, all-speed active cruise control (ACC) and automatic high beam.
Some of these safety features are also features that drive me crazy as a mum! Like the lane departure and forward collision alert or the parking sensor beeping sound. I want all the safety technology AND to be able to mute the sound when Tulsi’s asleep!
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