New Nissan Juke hybrid vs Toyota Yaris Cross
With fuel-sipping hybrid power, these small SUVs both promise to keep running costs low. But which is the better all-rounder?...
The contenders
NEW Nissan Juke 1.6 Hybrid N-Connecta
List price £28,210
Target Price £24,974
Nissan’s big-selling small SUV has finally gained hybrid power; it packs more punch than the Yaris Cross, but can it match its rival in other areas, such as efficiency?
Toyota Yaris Cross 1.5 Hybrid Design
List price £26,545
Target Price £25,201
Not only is the Yaris Cross the most economical car we’ve ever tested, but it’s also well equipped and competitively priced. It’ll be hard to beat
Considering that Nissan was an electrification pioneer, stealing a march on its rivals with the first-generation Nissan Leaf hatchback, it’s surprising that the Japanese brand has taken so long to electrify its most popular models. Only relatively recently has the top-selling Nissan Qashqai family SUV gained hybrid power, and now it’s the turn of the smaller Nissan Juke.
The headline claims are beguiling. With a hybrid set-up borrowed from the E-Tech versions of the Renault Clio and Renault Captur (consisting of a 1.6-litre petrol engine, two electric motors and a four-speed automatic gearbox), Nissan claims the Juke Hybrid delivers a 25% increase in power over the regular petrol-powered version and a 20% reduction in fuel consumption.
Those are the kind of figures that make you wonder why Nissan didn’t electrify the Juke sooner – especially when the competition in the small SUV category is so fierce. Take our second contender, for instance. The Toyota Yaris Cross is a similar size to the Juke, but on paper at least, it looks to be just as practical and even more fuel efficient.
Unlike the Juke, the Yaris Cross can be specified with traction-boosting four-wheel drive if you live in a part of the country that frequently experiences adverse weather. However, here we’re testing the front-wheel-drive version in mid-range Design trim, because we feel this represents the best value in the Yaris Cross range.
Driving
Performance, ride, handling, refinement
The Juke’s 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol engine is quite a bit more powerful than the 1.5-litre three-cylinder in the Yaris Cross (141bhp versus 114bhp), but because the latter is much lighter, both cars feel pretty evenly matched off the line. Mash the accelerator pedal into the carpet and both will reach 62mph from a standstill in just under 11 seconds – respectable, though hardly rapid.
Indeed, it’s only when you start to approach motorway speeds that the extra power of the Juke makes itself known. In an overtaking situation, for example, the Yaris takes an extra two seconds to accelerate from 50-70mph – a latency caused not just by the 30bhp power deficit, but also because the Yaris is fitted with a rather hesitant CVT automatic gearbox.
That said, neither of these cars is designed to feel sporty in nature, and at low speeds the smoothness of the Yaris’s CVT 'box is actually preferable to the occasionally clunky four-speed automatic in the Juke (noticeable only when the petrol engine is running, of course). Both cars can cover short distances on battery power alone, but press their accelerator pedals harder and their engines will fire into life.
When this happens, the Juke is noticeably louder around town, due to the coarseness of its engine. However, up the pace and you’ll soon find that it’s more peaceful than the Yaris Cross, which produces more wind and road noise at 70mph.
Neither car has a particularly smooth ride. The Yaris Cross feels a little more unsettled than the Juke at motorway speeds and subjects occupants to more side-to-side head movement along uneven roads, while the Juke thumps more over potholes around town.
Both cars handle in a perfectly safe and composed manner, but neither is what you’d call entertaining. While the Yaris Cross benefits from more accurate steering, higher grip levels and less body lean than the Juke, if you’re in the market for a more driver-focused small SUV, we’d point you in the direction of the Ford Puma.
Behind the wheel
Driving position, visibility, build quality
Both of our contenders offer slightly raised seating positions, so getting in or out is easier than it would be in a traditional hatchback. Once you’re behind the wheel, both provide fundamentally comfortable driving positions with plenty of (manual) seat and steering wheel adjustment.
Only the Toyota Yaris Cross comes with adjustable lumbar support for the driver to help ward off back ache on long journeys. But despite missing out on this level of adjustability, the Nissan Juke’s seat is more comfortable, thanks to more substantial side bolsters (to hold you in place through corners) and a more heavily padded and contoured seat base.
Forward visibility is good in both cars, thanks in part to their raised driving positions, but also because their windscreen pillars don’t block too much of your view at junctions. It’s slightly easier to see out the back of the Yaris Cross, though; the Juke’s heavily stylised rear pillars create sizeable blindspots when you look over your shoulder. Fortunately, the Juke comes with front and rear parking sensors as standard, along with a reversing camera, whereas the Yaris Cross gets only the latter.
The Juke scores extra points for having the plusher interior. From the soft-touch mid-section of the dashboard to the turbine-style air vents (which have metal-effect rings around them and make a satisfying click when you close them off), the Juke feels like a relatively premium product.
The Yaris Cross, meanwhile, feels sturdy and well screwed together, but the hard plastics used throughout its interior are disappointing to look at and touch.
On a more positive note, unlike a number of competitors (including the Volkswagen T-Roc), both cars benefit from intuitively designed dashboards. Both, for example, have physical knobs and buttons for their air conditioning systems, as opposed to touchscreen-based controls that are more distracting to use while driving.
Infotainment systems
Nissan Juke
N-Connecta trim has an 8.0in touchscreen with built-in sat-nav and Android/Apple smartphone mirroring. The menus are fairly easy to navigate, but the graphics look dated and the screen is often slow to react to inputs. It’s a shame you can’t upgrade to the crisp-sounding eight-speaker Bose sound system that’s standard on Tekna models. With speakers in the headrests, it’s much better than N-Connecta trim’s six-speaker set-up.
Toyota Yaris Cross
Lower-rung Icon and Design models come with an 8.0in touchscreen, while going for Excel or above (or ordering the Tech Pack on lesser trims) increases the size to 9.0in and adds builtin sat-nav. We prefer the smaller screen, because it has more physical buttons, so it’s easier to use while driving. Its responses aren’t the quickest and the layout isn’t all that intuitive, but you can circumvent this by using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.
Space and practicality
Front space, rear space, seating flexibility, boot
Although the Nissan Juke is the physically bigger car, front seat space in both is impressive; even those north of six feet tall will find that there’s plenty of head and leg room. The main difference is that the Juke’s interior is broader, but it’s not like you’ll be bashing elbows with your passenger in the Toyota Yaris Cross either.
The Juke has noticeably more leg room for rear seat occupants, but the Yaris Cross is far from cramped, and both cars provide plenty of space for your feet under their front seats. There’s little to split the two on rear head room, but both have a slightly raised middle seat, so its occupant’s hair is more likely to brush the headlining. That said, if you’re regularly planning to travel five up, the wider Juke is a touch more accommodating – even if its small side windows make it feel rather claustrophobic in the back.
The Yaris Cross hits back with a significantly larger boot. It’s deceptively long and deep and can accommodate an impressive seven carry-on suitcases beneath its tonneau cover, compared with just five in the Juke. Lifting heavy items into the Yaris Cross’s boot can be tricky, though, because there’s a significant drop from its lip to the boot floor; the Juke benefits from an adjustable boot floor that can be raised to alleviate that drop.
On the other hand, the Yaris Cross gets more versatile rear seatbacks that fold in a handy 40/20/40 configuration, with the Juke having to make do with a more traditional 60/40 split.
Boot space
Nissan Juke
Boot capacity 354-1237 litres Suitcases 5
Toyota Yaris Cross
Boot capacity 397-1097 litres Suitcases 7
Buying and owning
Costs, equipment, reliability, safety and security
In these mid-rung trims, the Toyota Yaris Cross’s list price is a fair bit lower than the Nissan Juke’s, but if you use our free online New Car Buying service, you can get a much larger discount on the latter. You should, therefore, be able to get your hands on a Juke for fractionally less than the equivalent Yaris Cross.
Most buyers, however, will go down the PCP finance route, and here the Yaris Cross is the cheaper option, thanks to its lower list price and slower predicted rate of depreciation. Sign on the dotted line for a three-year contract with an initial £3000 deposit and a 10,000-mile annual limit and the Yaris Cross will set you back £352 per month to the Juke’s £396.
Over three years of ownership, the Yaris Cross will be quite a bit cheaper to run for private cash buyers, thanks not only to those stronger resale values but also lower insurance premiums, cheaper servicing and significantly lower fuel bills. The Yaris Cross averaged an impressive 60.1mpg in our real-world True MPG test (to the Juke’s 43.3mpg), making it the most frugal petrol car we’ve ever tested.
It’s the same story if you’re a company car driver paying benefit-in-kind tax, with the Yaris Cross costing £219 per month to the Juke’s £252 (assuming you’re in the 40% tax bracket).
Both cars come with plenty of standard equipment, including climate control, cruise control, full LED headlights and keyless entry. Although it’s surprising that the Yaris Cross lacks parking sensors, it compensates by coming with adaptive cruise control (which adjusts your speed automatically to stay a set distance from the car in front) and roof rails, neither of which the Juke gets in this trim.
Either way, you get a reasonable roster of safety kit, including automatic emergency braking and lane-keeping assistance, while each has a full five-star Euro NCAP safety rating. That said, the Juke was tested in 2019 under a less stringent set of standards than those in place in 2021 when the Yaris Cross was assessed.
Neither car featured in the most recent What Car? Reliability Survey, but Toyota ranked a highly creditable second (out of 32) in the overall brand league table, with Nissan down in 25th place. To give you peace of mind, three-year warranties are included, but Toyota will extend this to 10 years or 100,000 miles, if you have the car serviced annually at a franchised dealer.
Our verdict
If you’re looking for a small SUV that’s practical and affordable to run, either of our contenders will serve you well. The margin between them isn’t wide, but the Yaris Cross is our pick, thanks to its smoother manners around town, bigger boot and stellar fuel economy. The icing on the cake is Toyota’s enviable reliability record, plus a class-leading warranty.
The Juke may have to yield to the Yaris Cross, but it doesn’t leave with its head hanging in shame. Not only is it roomier and better finished inside, but it’s also good value (after discounts) for private buyers. That said, the hybrid’s efficiency isn’t spectacular enough for us to recommend it over the cheaper entry-level petrol Juke.
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1st – Toyota Yaris Cross
For Superior fuel economy; better handling; smoother around town; bigger boot; Toyota’s reliability record
Against Falls short on interior quality; more wind and road noise at motorway speeds; slightly unsettled ride
Recommended options None
What Car? rating 4 stars out of 5
Read our full Toyota Yaris Cross review >>
Find Toyota Yaris Cross deals >>
2nd – Nissan Juke
For Plusher interior; more rear seat space; quieter motorway cruiser; bigger discounts available for private buyers
Against Automatic gearbox can be clunky around town; costlier on a PCP; efficiency is no match for Yaris Cross’s
Recommended options None
What Car? rating 3 stars out of 5
Read our full Nissan Juke review >>
Find Nissan Juke deals >>
Specifications: Nissan Juke 1.6 Hybrid N-Connecta
Engine 4cyl, 1598cc, petrol, plus two electric motors
Peak power 141bhp (combined)
Peak torque 109Ib ft (combined)
Gearbox 4-spd automatic
0-60mph 10.5sec
30-70mph in kickdown 9.8sec
Top speed 103mph
30-0mph 8.6m
70-0mph 45.9m
Noise at 30mph 62.5dB
Noise at 70mph 70.2dB
Kerb weight 1327kg
Tyre size (std) 215/60 R17
True MPG 43.3mpg
Official fuel economy 56.5mpg
Fuel tank 46 litres
CO2 emissions 112g/km
Specifications: Toyota Yaris Cross 1.5 Hybrid Design
Engine 3cyl, 1490cc, petrol, plus electric motor
Peak power 114bhp at 5500rpm (combined)
Peak torque 89lb ft at 3600rpm (engine only)
Gearbox CVT automatic
0-60mph 10.7sec
30-70mph in kickdown 11.1sec
Top speed 105mph
30-0mph 8.8m
70-0mph 46.0m
Noise at 30mph 61.9dB
Noise at 70mph 71.4dB
Kerb weight 1175kg
Tyre size (std) 215/55 R17
True MPG 60.1mpg
Official fuel economy 62.8mpg
Fuel tank 36 litres
CO2 emissions 102g/km
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