Rental Car Review: 2024 Toyota Corolla Hybrid LE

It may sound extremely nerdy or perhaps I've become very boring as I've gotten settled into adulthood, but I'm always excited when I get a chance to drive a Toyota as a rental vehicle for work trips or vacations. Most automakers only provide their barebones vehicles when selling to rental chains and I've driven plenty of overly basic vehicles from Mitsubishi, Nissan, Hyundai, and Ford. They almost always leave me anxious to drop the keys off and race back home. This time however, I was going to give the 2024 Toyota Corolla Hybrid LE a try on the roads around the DFW area, and I was nearly giddy to be in a familiar car with a drivetrain I've yet to try. Of course, it's just a base model hybrid compact car, but this is a volume seller and I really wanted to know, do people enjoy driving this thing or is it just an appliance used to save money long-term?

Powertrain:

With today's high gas prices I was amazed with the 480 miles to empty that was displayed on the instrument cluster upon pickup. On an 11.3 gallon tank that's roughly 42 MPG mixed driving for a rental car that has seen at least one service interval, and undoubtedly plenty of throttle abuse. Of course, such great gas mileage comes with a caveat, a pair of electric motors that help boost a 1.8 liter four cylinder to generate 134 hp and 156 lb-ft. Now that's not to say it is absolutely underwhelming but you're not going to win any streetlight drag races with this engine and CVT transmission, it's not the trick unit with the real first gear, but your normal Toyota planetary gearset that does the job; the efficiency job. That being said, you should expect a brand new Corolla Hybrid SE FWD to get roughly 50 MPG and to 60 mph under 10 seconds, there's no explosive acceleration, even in power mode, but that's not the job of this workhorse, that stallion instead wears a GR badge. Driving on Dallas' various highways and wide open streets, the Corolla Hybrid performs just fine, there's enough oomph to let you squirt in and around traffic, onramps in this area give you enough lead-in to get you up to a comfortable 70mph, and surprisingly jaunts above the speed limit arrive at timing that doesn't necessarily disappoint. All in all, it's a fine powertrain, buzzy at higher speeds with selectable power modes to change the throttle's input and "shift points", yet capable in navigating mundane daily driving, this is not a RAV4 Prime or other performance hybrid drivetrain from Toyota, instead it's the one that just works.

Handling:

Dallas and the neighborhoods that help make up the DFW area lack the curvature in the road to really highlight handling dynamics at the limit. Aside from a few neighborhoods with a handful of twists and turns, most of the driving is on flat surfaces until you get looped into an onramp to grab a bite on the other side of town. Fortunately, I think there was enough feedback from the Corolla's driving experience to express here, and for most of the country these are the type of driving conditions you may experience. The Corolla Hybrid LE FWD comes with independent front and rear suspension, up front are your standard MacPherson struts, and out back is a multi-link setup, this is different than your standard non-hybrid LE which uses a torsion beam in the rear. This upgrade to the rear suspension doesn't net many advantages that you can expose in a car like this, but the total package makes for a compliant ride over most of the concrete paved Texas roads. Expansion joints in the roads and various dips at intersections are handled fairly well aside from increased road noise but that's less to do with the spring rate and more to do with the 16 steel wheels wrapped in 205/55 R16 all-season Dunlop tires. Steering is weighted to appeal to the masses, not artificially heavy like some modern sports cars but not as light as a 90's Buick LeSabre, it allows you to feel what the road is saying as you carve into a Whataburger parking lot. It may not be the GR Corolla but the suspension does a fine job of managing body roll when going faster than you should up an on-ramp.

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Interior:

The 2024 Corolla Hybrid LE FWD has an interior that is relatively spartan. If you're looking for a multitude of tech features this isn't the car for you but it does have Toyota's set of safety nannies with TSS 3.0 (more info can be found on Toyota's website) and it comes standard with an 8 inch infotainment display that has wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There are luckily physical controls and buttons on both the steering wheel and HVAC panel, drive modes can be selected at the press of a button near the gear selector. Materials are basic, the black cloth seats simply exist as does the unfortunate piano black plastic that is still plaguing almost every car till this day, but the real tyrant in all of this are the door cards which if used to lean your left elbow on, will have you feeling like you fell off of a skateboard...at my age. The plastics are hard, the door panels, parts of the lower dash, padded rubber is seldom used as is anything padded really but it's built to a price point and as an appliance. Space-wise, the Corolla delivers, my almost 6-foot frame fit ok with plenty of space for rear occupants, the trunk is also spacious with enough depth to carry two full-size pieces of luggage or more. Road noise is apparent in the Corolla Hybrid LE, whether it's wind pushing at every seam on the exterior or the aforementioned small wheels kicking up gravel as it pounds the pavement, it's not a Lexus but then again it's not priced as such.

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Exterior:

Aging gracefully but aging, the Corolla sedan's silhoutte in LE trim screams base model. Offering the modernity of LED lighting all around, the Corollas at this level do little in terms of looks aside from color matching details like door handles; it's a fairly handsome car but the SE, Nightshade, GR, and even FX models provide a bit more flare in the looks department. The 16-inch wheels are a tell tale that this Midnight Black Metallic Corolla is just an LE as hubcaps help deflect dust but from 15 feet away they do a great job mimicking an alloy wheel. Released for the 2020 model year, this current generation Corolla is arguably the best looking generation since the mid-90's E100 series; it's modern and aggressive in both body styles and comes in a myriad of colors depending on trim level.

Final Thoughts:

I had a decent time in the 2024 Toyota Corolla Hybrid LE FWD, it's an appliance no doubt, but it performs so well in so many categories that it makes all the sense to use this as a commuter car. Aside from the hard plastic door cards, road noise, and harshness felt through the wheels; it is a no-brainer if you need something that just works. Is it fun? That's really subjective, is it more fun than a high mileage 20 year old Toyota? Yes, because it feels quick enough to move in and out of the way while giving you the piece of mind that it will get you back home no matter what you do. However, in the mindset of have a fun daily, there's other cars that could be cross-shopped even within the Toyota lineup, the LE Hybrid will not blow your socks off with performance but a non-hybrid SE model tightens up a few loose ends and can be had in a manual if you look hard enough in the used section. Driving engagement is not why most people pick this car, they choose it based on how much it can save them at the pump, and over three days I only had to top off the tank with less than two gallons of 87 octane, the mix of the ultra efficient gas engine paired with the helpful electic drivetrain barely sipped on gas as I sometimes drove it like I stole it. Ultimately, this car does it's job and does it well, it's efficient, nimble, spacious enough, and reliable, there's more fun to be had with other cars but this would make the perfect daily driver at a higher trim level so you can enjoy your classic sports car on the weekend.