Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by hybrid engines and utilizing the 5-door hatchback body style within the same 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Toyota and front in the case of the Peugeot). The first one has a Toyota-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 140hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 180hp engine designed by Peugeot.

The fact that the Peugeot got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the French car offers a considerable difference of 18% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Toyota with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Peugeot badge with 4.3 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Peugeot is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 225 kilometers per hour, 45km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the French car, averaging around 1.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (235 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 175% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Toyota appears just a bit more reliable, although the difference is truly marginal. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, the French car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Peugeot being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Peugeot. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.