Capability counts. . .

By Gary S. Vasilash

There are two things that someone who is buying a compact car wants, even though these two things aren’t written about a great deal.

One is size.

The second is performance.

Now admittedly, when someone is interested in a compact car, they want something, well, compact.

Not small.

Not tiny.

But not medium.

Not large.

This may be a financial consideration.

Or it simply may be that it makes sense.

A metric that I consider when behind the wheel of a compact car is whether I feel comfortable in it vis-à-vis the other vehicles on the road. And where I drive there is a high proportion of light-duty pickups and full-size SUVs.

There are few things worse that driving in congested traffic surrounded by giant vehicles—a Chevy Suburban is more than 18 feet long, 6.5 feet wide and over 6 feet high; an F-150 is 17 feet long, 8 feet wide and 6 feet high—and wondering whether you’re going to be seen.

The Corolla Hybrid is 182.3 inches long (about 15 feet), 70.1 inches wide (just under 6 feet) and 56.5 inches high (under 5 feet).

And it seems as though it has the size to allow one to drive with confidence.

Then there is the issue of performance.

This is something that has to be considered in the classic “horses for courses” sense.

Meaning that the Corolla Hybrid is meant to drive people in their daily activities not the Nürburgring.

The Corolla Hybrid has a system horsepower (which means what it gets from the engine and the motor) of 138. Which is pretty much a meaningless number.

The “performance” characteristic is: Can the vehicle drive on a freeway and have enough oomph to be able to deal with everything from full-size sedans and semis—and do so at speed?

And so having spent time on I-75 with it, I found the answer to that question is “yes.”

No, I didn’t blow the doors off of anything.

But I was able to maneuver with sufficient alacrity such that I was able to keep moving at a brisk pace.

And then, of course, there is the fact that this is a high fuel-efficient vehicle.

The sticker has it at 53 mpg city, 46 mpg highway and 50 mpg combined.

My combined was 49 mpg (most of the miles were accumulated on the highway).

This means that I could have driven approximately 550 miles before having to stop for a tank of gas (it has an 11.3-gallon tank).

So while that is comparatively thrifty (with the national average of a gallon of regular being $3.50, that means 550 miles for under $40), there is nothing about the way the Corolla Hybrid operates, nor about its interior execution and amenities, that makes you think “econo-box.”

A good thing.