Thus, like its Golf and Octavia rivals, the Corolla will not be a pure-electric proposition in its next iteration – helping to sustain its popularity as demand for EVs continues to progress at dramatically different speeds in key global markets.
“It’s about providing everyone with the right choice,” said Scott. “We don’t want to leave anyone behind.”
Asked by Autocar if the concept was a realistic preview of the next Corolla, he replied: “Let’s see what happens. With a positive reaction from the show, why not? It’s not out of the realms of reality. It could be believable.”
Recent concepts from Toyota including the Aygo X Prologue, Sport Crossover and Urban Crossover have evolved into road-ready customer cars with little visual alteration, and the Corolla concept looks just as close to showrooms as those did.
Scott said the concept is “a vision at the moment” but that “a lot of nice comments” would influence the company’s decision on whether to put it into production.
It was designed at Toyota’s European design centre in Nice, France, with the aim of totally reinventing the Corolla for a new era, rather than evolving what has gone before.
“When we started the project, we wanted to make a Corolla that people would look at and say ‘I can’t believe that’s a Corolla,” Scott said, contradicting the notion that long-running models should be carefully evolved for each generation to remain recognisable.
