Toyota BZ4X

spwolf

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November saw 2749 bZ4X sold in China from FAW and GAC combined. That's already more than all C-HR EVs they sold in a year.

Still a rocky start, but Toyota selling 4 digits of BEV in one market a month is a pretty big milestone for them. There's a lot of work to do for them to achieve the 88k annual production planned for the bZ4X. If they could maintain a 3k+ volume a month then the project is at least salvageable.


For all the mistakes they have made so far, they did one thing extremely smart and that is creating a JV and signing a tech transfer agreement with BYD. Let's hope they learn the right things like cost control not the wrong things like windshield falling off or spontaneous combustion. The bZ3 will be the learning project that will make or break their entire EV plans.

Toyota knows everything about cost control. Even C-HR in China was built using chinese motors and chinese batteries.
Just another supplier supplying parts.
 

spwolf

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TMC will do a OTA, let see what difference it makes.

Will not change poor efficiency though or unlock more of the buffer, just meaning of 0% will be changed by few km.

Also they essentially had a bug where it would estimate a big number of range taken if you turn on AC or heating to anything, which scared people, so they will actually fix that with better estimate.

Essentially it is all cosmetics, car is still spending way too much power during winter.
 

NVlaar

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Will not change poor efficiency though or unlock more of the buffer, just meaning of 0% will be changed by few km.

Also they essentially had a bug where it would estimate a big number of range taken if you turn on AC or heating to anything, which scared people, so they will actually fix that with better estimate.

Essentially it is all cosmetics, car is still spending way too much power during winter.
I think they might not meet their 90% battery capacity goals if we want to have like lets say Tesla level efficiency. I do not believe that Toyota cannot build a car that is not as efficient as other 'benchmarks' on the market.

At this point either they stick to their plan and wait for the battery tech improvements or scrap that 90% thing entirely and just do whatever other guys are doing.

Personally, I prefer the inferior performance with better longevity/reliability approach. I mean thats how Toyota products have always been and thats why they are at the top. On paper, X5 with B58 is on another planet compared to RX models in terms of spec sheets and driving dynamics but do we really care? No.

Not saying that BZ4X is a very good product but people are bashing it abit too harsh.
 

spwolf

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I think they might not meet their 90% battery capacity goals if we want to have like lets say Tesla level efficiency. I do not believe that Toyota cannot build a car that is not as efficient as other 'benchmarks' on the market.

efficiency is not related to 90% capacity though.

Right now the biggest problem is how much energy it spends per 100 miles / 100 km. It is not as good as other competitors, let alone Tesla.

Now the next question is, how much battery they give it a range as well as these annoying bugs that are present right now, for instance, you turn on AC to anything, it drops remaining distance by 60 miles no matter how and where you are driving. That is more of an bug. Showing 0% at 90% capacity while using WLTP numbers with 100% capacity is also an bug. Either show 100% or do not calculate it into number for WLTP (this is not a buffer, large buffer still exists).

So a lot of bugs, but underlaying problem is that this gen1.5 tech from them and not competitive.
 

NVlaar

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efficiency is not related to 90% capacity though.

Right now the biggest problem is how much energy it spends per 100 miles / 100 km. It is not as good as other competitors, let alone Tesla.

Now the next question is, how much battery they give it a range as well as these annoying bugs that are present right now, for instance, you turn on AC to anything, it drops remaining distance by 60 miles no matter how and where you are driving. That is more of an bug. Showing 0% at 90% capacity while using WLTP numbers with 100% capacity is also an bug. Either show 100% or do not calculate it into number for WLTP (this is not a buffer, large buffer still exists).

So a lot of bugs, but underlaying problem is that this gen1.5 tech from them and not competitive.
"efficiency is not related to 90% capacity though"
I get that but all these battery preconditioning or whatever to keep the batteries at their optimal state sort of use some energy hence cripple its efficiency? No? Am somewhat anti-EV myself so quite a bit dumb when it comes to EV tech so don't quote me on that. LOL

That range dropping with AC, it is typical Toyota conservative crap. Just like constant beeping when in reverse or overly protective safety techs. It this point, I even thought maybe they are intentionally nerfing their EVs so they can sell more hybrids.

"this gen1.5 tech from them and not competitive"
Agreed. This is just Toyota playing around. You can clearly see the products they really put effort in (5th Prius). BZ4X is not one of them. Too bad for you guys who want EVs.
 

CRSKTN

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Id be curious if they have a lifetime KPI they think will be better than rivals.

Eg other rivals give you more range early on to be competitive but then range degrades in an accelerated way
 

spwolf

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That range dropping with AC, it is typical Toyota conservative crap. Just like constant beeping when in reverse or overly protective safety techs. It this point, I even thought maybe they are intentionally nerfing their EVs so they can sell more hybrids.

They have to be competitive because they made this for countries where people want EVs for whatever reason.
So they will get a lot of pressure from existing dealers and their customers.

In this particular case, a bug or not enough time to build something more sophisticated, without understanding how important the range is to the EV buyer.
 

ssun30

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Id be curious if they have a lifetime KPI they think will be better than rivals.

Eg other rivals give you more range early on to be competitive but then range degrades in an accelerated way
600km range degraded by 20% is still 480km. 500km range degrade by 10% is 450km. So the product that targets 80% retention but 20% more range has 7% more range at the end of the life cycle. That's why the 90% strategy doesn't work.
 

CRSKTN

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So 4% on 500km in your example would be par with 20 on 600
Every 1km of range they can add to that 500 lets them reduce their degradation outperformance hurdle by 0.2%

They may also be concerned about availability of raw resources to service both elevated EV sales as first generation packs hit EOL, and required replacements.

They could be buying themselves time.