Toyota Proace City Verso Electric Review 2025

Those who demand the most practical and space-efficient of cars will choose van-derived MPVs over more fashionable SUVs every time and with good reason. They provide masses of space for people and their belongings while also being comfy and relaxed to drive. Three of the most popular models are near-facsimiles of each other built by Stellantis have now been joined by a fourth — find out if it’s the one to have in our full Toyota Proace City Verso Electric review.

Toyota Proace City Verso Electric is an awful lot of name for a relatively compact van with windows, so we’ll use as few words as possible to explain it. Toyota calls its smallest van the Proace City to differentiate it from the larger Toyota Proace. Verso indicates this one’s for passengers not pallets, while the Electric element is self-explanatory.

Although Toyota’s sold the Proace City Verso with combustion engines in other European markets since 2018 and in EV guise from 2021, it remained absent from UK price lists until the start of 2024, receiving a facelift just a few months later.

Now, this car plus three other similarly priced, electric, five- and seven-seat van-derived MPVs, all share the same main body, drive system and underpinnings, which is what happens when Toyota does a deal with Stellantis to get into the commercial vehicle sector in double-quick time. Essentially, the only Toyota-contribution to the car is the name.

In this review we’ll discover whether it’s actually possible to pick the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric out in a lineup of almost identical suspects that comprise of the Citroen e-Berlingo, Peugeot E-Rifter and Vauxhall Combo Life Electric. There’s also a Fiat E-Doblo but as that’s not sold in Britain we can ignore it.

If you fancy a car of this ilk but electric power isn’t for you then you’ve few alternatives. Similarly co-developed are the Ford Tourneo Connect and its close cousin the Volkswagen Caddy, although it’s more VW than Blue Oval. Petrol, diesel and plug-in hybrid versions are available, although the PHEV can’t be had in seven-seater form.

Sacrifice some of that van-derived boxiness and your next best option is the Dacia Jogger, which is an estate dressed up as an SUV. Petrol-only and self-charging hybrids are available, each with seven chairs.

You’ll need to look at the corporate front ends to tell the Stellantis models apart as almost everything else about them remains common to all, including a peculiar detail which sees the curve of the bodywork at the lower-rear corners of the front doors overlapping the glazing to such an extent that, window down, it’s barely possible to rest your elbow on the sill.

As per its clones, the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric is available in a choice of two sizes — Short with five seats and Long that has seven. Both lengths are available in the entry-level Icon specification, but the plusher Design is restricted to the smaller shape.

The interior combines a symphony of hard plastics with a somewhat hose-down feeling promoted by rubber matting up front, but it’s really well built as you’d expect from a Toyota — even though this one’s been manufactured by another firm.

There are physical buttons and controls, including for the air-con, which is nice. The touchscreen’s pretty basic and laggy in response to inputs, but at least there’s voice recognition, while Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration helps things along.

The driving position’s not bad and not especially van-like, delivering welcome comfort. It’s a similar story in the second and third rows which are accessed by sliding rear doors — a revelation in tight car parks.

Being van-based, the space inside the Proace City Verso Electric is enormous and practicality’s aided by second row seats that fold neatly away into the floor, with the rearmost row on Long models can be folded to the side or removed altogether. The boot floor’s also super-low for easier loading, although the enormous tailgate needs a hefty yank to latch closed on the first time of asking.

Only one power and battery combination is available for the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric. The former provides 136PS and 270Nm of torque for amply relaxed performance, the latter’s rather restricted at 50kWh. Officially, the driving range is 207-213 miles, although making the most of what power that is could dial that down by a quarter in the real-world.

Thanks to the weight of batteries soothing the Toyota’s bouncy, van-like temperament of the rear suspension and nice high tyre sidewalls on the 16-inch wheels, the ride’s pretty good even without passengers aboard. Shame that the boxy interior lacks sufficient sound-deadening materials to keep road and wind noise effectively subdued.

The Toyota Proace City Verso Electric can be your for as little as £31,995 on-the-road, but if you want seven seats you’ll need £33,245. These prices are almost exactly in line with the comparable offerings from Peugeot and Vauxhall, only the Citroen variant lopping about a grand off the asking price.

So, why choose the Toyota? Provided you have it serviced at an authorised Toyota outlet, it offers an extended 10-year/100,000-mile warranty package that the Stellantis brands can’t match — a compelling differentiator for these identikit cars.

Tipping the scales at 1847kg, the Long version of the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric is quite a porker — not that the Short is sylphlike at 1736kg. Usefully the weight of batteries serves to soothe the bouncy, van-like temperament of the rear suspension rather nicely. Lob in high sidewalls on the 16-inch tyres and the ride proves surprisingly good.

Massive windows offer a clear view of the surroundings, which is a good thing because in the absence of a rear-pointing camera on Icon models, you must rely on rear parking sensors and large door mirrors to help with reversing. Light steering and a drive system that’s particularly responsive at lower speeds make urban driving generally something of a pleasure.

At higher speeds on twisty roads, the car remains largely comfortable and refined. There is some body roll but that heavy battery sets the centre of gravity low enough to ensure things remain stable. While the electric motor delivers sufficient power to keep the driver interested, the eco-focused tyres do not follow suit in the grip stakes — not that this is the sort of machine you’ll be chucking around.

At motorway speeds, the ride remains comfortable, so it’s a real shame that the boxy interior lacks sufficient sound-deadening material either above or below the floor, so road noise is quite intrusive. As is wind noise from big mirrors and windscreen pillars when the speed builds.

Flappy paddles on the steering wheel adjust the strength of regenerative braking in the usual EV manner but not enough to bring the car to a halt even in the strongest setting. This, judging by the strength of retardation getting you to dead slow, feels a deliberate decision to make the driver use the brake pedal.

Whichever Toyota Proace City Verso Electric you choose there’s just the one drive system option. Energy is fed from a 50kWh battery to a single electric motor with 136PS and 270Nm of torque driving the front wheels. In typical EV fashion, it’s driven like an automatic, with a single-speed transmission.

A driving mode selector rocker switch enables the driver to flick between Eco, Normal and Power settings. Only the latter offers the full output, which equates to a somewhat relaxed 0-62mph dash of 11.2 seconds and an entirely modest top speed of 83mph. 

In Normal mode you have just 108PS and 210Nm at your disposal, while in Eco mode the dial is turned down even further to only 81PS and 180Nm, where both the climate control system and the car’s top speed are limited. In both of the these lesser modes, however, you can still unleash full power by pressing the throttle pedal past a resistance section in its travel.

In truth, Normal mode is enough for most needs, whilst Eco feels somewhat lethargic, making you accelerate hard enough to bring in that extra oomph all too often, thus somewhat negating any range-saving.

There’s a four-star Euro NCAP score for the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric, although that was actually earned by the Peugeot Rifter and then applied to all the models that share the same body, underpinnings and technology.

It scored 91% for adult occupant protection, 81% for child occupant protection, a rather poor 58% for vulnerable road user protection and 68% for safety assist.

Not also that it was awarded in 2018 and the safety organisation’s statute of limitations means it has now expired as the latest tests are even tougher. Even so, there’s enough useful tech on board to suit most users, including six airbags, cruise control, road sign recognition, tyre pressure monitors, hill-start assist, a pre-collision system with pedestrian detection and the odious lane-departure alert with steering control.

If you want to tow using a Toyota Proace City Verso Electric then you need to bear two factors in mind — only the Short version can be equipped with a tow bar and even when it is, it’s restricted to a braked trailer weight of 750kg.

If lugging is required from an inexpensive and practical seven-seater, you’ll need to look at a petrol Dacia Jogger with a braked trailer capacity of 1200kg, or the Ford Tourneo Connect and Volkswagen Caddy duo — both petrol and diesel versions manage 1500kg.

At 4751mm the Long seven-seat version of the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric is a useful 350mm greater bumper-to-bumper than its Short five-seater sibling, guaranteeing that the two third row passengers have stacks of space. They are, if anything, slightly more spoiled than the three second row occupants, with no risk of rubbing shoulders or clonking elbows.

The driving position’s not bad, not especially van-like and offers a great view out thanks to a height-adjustable driver’s seat. It would also be a great deal better if the non-adjustable lumbar support wasn’t quite so intrusive.

Accessed via gently weighty sliding doors with winding windows on the range-topping Design specification, both second- and third-row seating legroom is enormous. The three middle row seats are all the same size, not the last word in comfort, and don’t slide back and forth. Not that they need to.

They fold forwards in a 66:33 split, the bases collapsing into the floor with the backrests on top — a neat solution creating a totally flat floor. This also means it’s easy to access the two roomy third row seats.

Choose the entry-level Icon specification and the Proace City Verso’s huge tailgate lacks the separately opening glass of the posher Design models, plus it can also be somewhat grumpy about closing properly unless you’re quite firm with it.

It accesses a super-low, carpeted, 1050 litres of loadspace up to the height of the side window sills in the Long model when the third row seats are folded away. Removing them altogether and loading the Toyota to the roof increases loadspace the up to 2950 litres. For the five-seater Short version, those corresponding capacities are 775 litres and 2130 litres respectively.

Storage spaces abound as you’d expect from a van-based car. There’s no centre console between the front seats, just a chasm down to a plastic tray on the floor — which is somewhat out of reach as a result — and a tiny cubby in the drive selector housing that protrudes from the lower dashboard.

The cup holders are drilled into the dash-top extremities, there’s bin above the driver’s instrument binnacle, where you’d find the guts of a head-up display system on posher versions, plus an overhead, full-width tray into which we can never think of anything to put but are pleased it’s there all the same.

The swathes of hard plastic on display inside the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric may seem a little low rent on first impression but they should stand up well to the rigours of family life. The same may be said for the fabric seat upholstery.

Curiously, the flooring is lined with rubber matting, yet the rear loadspace is carpeted, which feels the wrong way round.

Overall, though, this is a pleasing interior that has been well built. The physical switches are wobble-free and solid in operation, the materials and finishes look tidy and durable, and nothing creaks, rattles or groans.

The infotainment is yet another thing the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric shares with its siblings from Stellantis. The centrally mounted 10-inch touchscreen uses the same fonts and graphics found in its Citroen, Peugeot and Vauxhall counterparts.

Offering navigation, DAB radio, a six-speaker audio system, voice recognition plus Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration, the system is fine on the whole but can be a bit laggy in response to inputs.

Similarly, the standard-fit integral navigation looks rather basic but gets the job done. Happily, you can bypass this and use your smartphone, the screen resolution is good enough for clear directions when using an app such as Google Maps.

The 10-inch driver’s display screen features configurable dials, with a rather limited range of options and a trip computer controlled via the end of the wiper stalk.

The Toyota Proace City Verso Electric can be yours for as little as £31,995 on-the-road but if you want seven seats you’ll need £33,245.

These prices are almost exactly in line with the comparable offerings from Stellantis. The Citroen e-Berlingo M can be yours for £31,240 jumping to £32,140 for the XL, the Peugeot E-Rifter costs from £32,250 for the Standard body and £33,150 for the Long, while the Vauxhall Combo Life 5-seat starts at £32,190 with the 7-seat XL from £33,090.

Why plump for the Toyota, then? Well, provided you have it serviced at an authorised Toyota outlet, it does offer an extended 10-year/100,000-mile warranty. That aside, your choice is all down to which frontal design you prefer, badge snobbery and how far away each dealer is from you.

If your super-practical five- or seven-seater doesn’t have to be an EV, you might also consider the Dacia Jogger or the co-developed duo of the Ford Tourneo Connect and Volkswagen Caddy.

The Toyota Proace City Verso Electric falls into insurance group 19, actually a couple of groups lower than the mechanically identical Citroen e-Berlingo and Vauxhall Combo Life Electric.

An electric van-based MPV is a tempting company car for drivers with large families. Courtesy of the electric powertrain, Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) costs are just 3% at 2025/26 rates, while P11D prices are considerably lower than those of other seven-seat models available.

As of April 2025, EVs are subject to the annual VED charge at the same rate as combustion-engined models but there’s no need to worry about the Expensive Car Supplement as all Proace City Verso Electrics are sub-£40,000.

Toyota seems to have enough faith in the Stellantis underpinnings of the car to offer the same extended 10-year/100,000-mile warranty available on its own cars, provided you have it serviced at an authorised Toyota outlet.

Toyota Proace City Verso Electric: range and charging

The Toyota Proace City Verso Electric has a 50kWh battery — the only option available. The larger 54kWh battery used by other Stellantis models has yet to make its way into the van-derived MPV line-up.

We mention this because every little would help in a car which currently boasts a WLTP-tested Combined cycle range of just 207-213 miles. It’s not equipped with a heat pump to keep the range bolstered in cold weather, so that claimed range is entirely likely to end up nearer the 150-mile mark in winter.

Using a DC rapid charger at a 100kW flow rate, the Proace City Verso Electric requires 30 minutes for a 0%-80% recharge. A flat-to-full battery replenishment using an AC domestic wallbox at 7kW needs a little under seven hours.

The Toyota Proace City Verso Electric is available in two trim levels — Icon and Design. Both Short (five-seat) and Long (seven-seat) bodies are available but the lengthier of the two can only be had in Icon guise.

Standard equipment for the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric Icon includes:

• 16-inch steel wheels with full-width plastic trims.
• Unpainted front and rear bumpers.
• Unpainted door handles and rail for sliding rear doors.
• 30% opacity dark-tinted rear windows.
• Automatic lights.
• Heated and electrically adjustable door mirrors.
• 11kW on-board AC charger.
• Remote central locking.
• 10-inch driver’s display screen.
• 10-inch HD multimedia touchscreen with DAB radio, Bluetooth connectivity, integral navigation and MyToyota connected online services.
• Android Auto and Apple CarPlay smartphone integration.
• Two USB-C sockets on the dashboard.
• Manual air conditioning with pollen filter.
• Manual lumbar and height adjustment for driver’s seat.
• Cruise control and speed limiter.
• Electronic parking brake.
• Illuminated driver’s sunvisor with mirror.

If you decide to upgrade to the Toyota Proace City Verso Electric Design, additional equipment includes:

• 16-inch five-spoke alloy wheels.
• Body-coloured front and rear bumpers.
• Body-coloured door handles and rail for sliding rear doors.
• Gloss Black roof rails.
• 70% opacity dark-tinted rear windows.
• Opening sliding door windows.
• Opening tailgate glass hatch.
• Automatic main beam headlights.
• Automatic wipers.
• Electrically folding door mirrors.
• Dual-zone automatic climate control.
• Three-spoke leather-wrapped steering wheel.
• Chrome interior door handles.

Factory fitted options are restricted to which colour metallic paint you’d like for £680 if you’re not keen on the standard solid Icy White. The four alternatives are Aquamarine, Backpacker Khaki, Metallic Black and Silver Shadow.