Toyota has been in the news an awful lot lately about the depth of its commitment to full battery electric cars.
The company’s had a lot of credit for its hybrids it introduced those more than
two decades ago and they do make a decent Dent. into vehicle emissions but
of course full battery EVS are the next Frontier Tesla is kind of running away.
With the market around the world and here in Australia and this is one of
the cars that Toyota intends to put a stop to that. this is the bz4x the first
series production Toyota EV it’s here in Australia and I’m gonna drive it today
much earlier than its release date which is going to be in the fourth quarter of
1: 2023 sometime between October and December so is the bz4x worth waiting.
for how much is it going to cost how much range does it has we’ll answer all.
when it comes to battery size range charging warranty and other running
issues the blizzard Forex is about mid-pack now Toyota says that it’s
capable of 150 kilowatt charging speeds which are actually decent for this
segment and the claimed recharging time with a compatible charger is about 30
minutes to go to 80 of the battery so we’ll, obviously do our own range and
charging tests once the car is launched here in Australia so we’ll know for sure
now the car has a 64 kilowatt hour usable battery ,and the claim range is
470 K’s for this all-wheel drive model and just over 500 if you’re okay with
front-wheel drive and that’s impressively low claimed consumption of
about 13.6 kilowatt hours per 100 K’s for the all-wheel drive but as we’ll
find out in just a second I was only able to get 19 on my test drive today of
course that could be the fact that it’s, a UK car we’re at a test track here I
don’t know but that’s obviously a lot worse than the claim so we’ll have to
wait and see in the real world now, we have heard a bit about very slow
recharging and very low range in super cold winter climates in Europe but
thankfully here in Australia with a very moderate, sort of weather pattern that
shouldn’t be too much of an issue but we’ll see, now an interesting thing is
that Toyota actually warrants the battery of the bz4x for 10 years that’s
for 70 retention of its original capacity so anything worse, than that
then they’ll basically swap out enough of the battery until you get back Above
That 70 Mark moving around the back of the bz4x now it’s pretty distinctly a
coupe SUV it’s 4 690 mils long which is about seven centimeters longer than a
RAV4 so that should give you a decent view, of how big this car is now this is
a kind of top of the range all-wheel drive model from the UK we’ve got a
power Tailgater standard it gets out of the way quickly and reveals this much
space I’ll put the leader number on screen now it’s fairly practical you’ve
got some hooks you’ve got a cargo blind and those back seats fold 60 40 as well
so you can take longer stuff with you but one feature, you won’t find on the
bz4x is a spare wheel jumping into the bz4x and it’s immediately clear to me
that this EV gets a lot right now it’s obviously very different to a Tesla
Model Y in here and if you like the interior design of the Teslas then this
will probably be something that you hate and that’s okay because there is
something for everyone and design is subjective but the first thing that I
love about the interior of the bz4x, here in Australia on a hot day kind of
regretting this jacket is that the seats are vinyl much like they are on the
model y but they’re perforated which helps to Wick away sweat and they’re
2:also actively cool they’ve got Heating and Cooling in them which just keeps you.
much colder much calmer while you drive in the summer love that that’s going to
play really well in Australia especially because you can’t get a RAV4 with cooled
seats which is a bit weird looking forward we’ve got a very futuristic
dashboard with this kind of funny old plastic panel, here that leads up to a
digital instrument cluster with your speed range consumption media navigation
you can put a lot up there which is cool and you can control that screen with
these quick access buttons on this really alien sort of steering wheel
you’ve got to drive a monitor here that’s checking that you’re looking at
the road as well now in the center things are a bit more conventional we’ve
got a big wide touch screen same as the one that’s coming out in the 2023 Kluger.
And a few other cars in the Toyota Universe and then like touch buttons for
the climate here we have rockers for the fan and stuff that’s good then these
other buttons for like air circulation and stuff it’s all piano black so that’s
going to mark up really horribly this is piano black through here as well awful
3: really wish this was just like a matte plastic instead of a reflective.
fingerprinty surface that’s one thing I would change, and it’s one thing Toyota
hasn’t used on the dash which actually has this really cool textile on it which
is much nicer and cooler and more premium feeling than piano black on the
doors all soft material reals more piano black but, it’s quite a presentable
interior and even though the steering wheel and that screen look a bit freaky
everything actually works just as you’d expect from a normal car and normalcy is
the vibe of the bz4x the seats themselves they’ve got electric
adjustment they’re comfortable they’re supportive and this light gray color is
also great for Australia because it reflects light so hopefully Toyota
Australia chooses to bring these gray seats out, here for the bz4x this car was
sourced from the UK it’s a high spec car 20 inch wheels, not quite representative
of what we’re going to get here in Australia here in the back it’s mostly
good with a couple of negative points in terms of the space on offer really impressive.
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