Toyota BZ4X

[spwolf]

Not great things happening - Toyota has given this vehicle to media to drive in past week in Europe.
Some of the media will be EV media that is used to driving BEV vehicles, so they will test range, charging, and other things that BEV owners want to know.

It seems like Toyota built BEV for their Engineers and not for their customers. This is European BZ4x with Panasonic batteries
- After 80%, charge speed at DC charging is under 9 kw, which is impossible to use during trips. Every vehicle slows down, but it is around 50kw at 80% not 7kw. Usually vehicles slow down to 9kw well, well after 90%.
- There is a huge buffer at 0% displayed, up to 10% extra range.
- Not great efficiency either. So one of the largest deviations between WLTP and tests that specific Norwegian mag is conducting.

Between 0% and 80%, vehicle is using 62 kwh of battery.
Meaning on trips, your BZ4x behaves like a city BEV.

Toyota stopped media drives after this became clear and all media started reporting on it. They released cars to the media back on Friday, nobody knows what did they do, if anything.

Essentially avoid buying this unless there are some huge changes to the way they handle battery, as this is not competitive with anyone. I mean yes, you can have 10 year warranty on the battery if you create the system where it is almost impossible to to use more than 65% of battery.

was completely empty and had to be towed away. They drove it on country roads when the display said there were 0km left. They managed in this instance an extra 40km in range. After that 40km, the car would not drive faster than 30km/t. They managed another 2km until the battery was completely empty.

He then charged the battery from 0-100% for a total of 67.15kWh. It took 32 min to charge from 10%-80%. After 80%, the charging speed dropped to under 9kw. In total it took 2h 17m to charge to 100%.

Edit: (not as bad as first though-did incorrect math to...

www.bzforums.com

 

[Levi]

Not great things happening - Toyota has given this vehicle to media to drive in past week in Europe.
Some of the media will be EV media that is used to driving BEV vehicles, so they will test range, charging, and other things that BEV owners want to know.

It seems like Toyota built BEV for their Engineers and not for their customers. This is European BZ4x with Panasonic batteries
- After 80%, charge speed at DC charging is under 9 kw, which is impossible to use during trips. Every vehicle slows down, but it is around 50kw at 80% not 7kw. Usually vehicles slow down to 9kw well, well after 90%.
- There is a huge buffer at 0% displayed, up to 10% extra range.
- Not great efficiency either. So one of the largest deviations between WLTP and tests that specific Norwegian mag is conducting.

Between 0% and 80%, vehicle is using 62 kwh of battery.
Meaning on trips, your BZ4x behaves like a city BEV.

Toyota stopped media drives after this became clear and all media started reporting on it. They released cars to the media back on Friday, nobody knows what did they do, if anything.

Essentially avoid buying this unless there are some huge changes to the way they handle battery, as this is not competitive with anyone. I mean yes, you can have 10 year warranty on the battery if you create the system where it is almost impossible to to use more than 65% of battery.

Edit: (not as bad as first though-did incorrect math to...

www.bzforums.com

Well, so the same issues as every other BEV. BEVs are not a one fits all solution.

 

[spwolf]

Well, so the same issues as every other BEV. BEVs are not a one fits all solution.

That is not correct.

This is pretty much Toyota only disaster.

 

[ssun30]

And this is all guaranteed when the C-HR EV/UXe were so bad. They couldn't gain any useful feedback when these are not produced and sold in significant numbers. They didn't learn how to produce BEVs economically; they didn't learn how to do thermal management properly; they didn't learn how to manage charging curves properly. The C-HR EV had zero value as a learning project, so they had to learn everything from scratch on the BZ4X. And we can only hope they do learn something from the disaster that's the BZ4X so far. Maybe they will give in and release the BZ4X LR like they finally conceded the UXe needs a larger battery, well how about putting in the big enough battery in the first place?

 

[CRSKTN]

Sufficiently dense/capable Battery chemistry they can get to market in scale is probably a gating item for them. Also probably something they're relying on as a drop in to help address some of their issues.

 

[ssun30]

That's a losing strategy because newer denser batteries also help competitors, in fact they widen the gap even further. They cannot count on a wonder technology that suddenly make them competitive because others also have access to it.

The correct strategy is just build enough EVs to learn how to do it economically and get feedback from customers. Just forget about reliability for now because they cannot prove it. It doesn't matter how reliable a product is in 10 years when it is unusable today.

 

[qtb007]

Unusable? Bit dramatic, eh?

 

[spwolf]

Unusable? Bit dramatic, eh?

Compared to everything else, yes.

I mean their battery strategy is really bad, and it is hidden from the customer.
If you told people you had 65% battery available, they would not buy this car.

It might be hard to explain to people that don't drive EVs yet but lets look at it this way - you can really use only 65% of mileage rating that you bought this car for, imduring real life trips.

Where it does not matter is city trips where you charge at home.
But it is not rated, priced or advertised like that.

For US market it does not matter as it onlt tiny portion of sales, but in many parts of Europe this car should become best seller and this is now a huge problem for local Toyota

 

[spwolf]

As journalists around Europe are now driving press cars, they are discovering how bad BZ4X is in mildly cold weather.

Ny elbil skuffer slemt i rækkevidde

Strømmen i Toyota BZ4X rækker i praksis kun til det halve af det lovede. Problemet er det samme med søsterbilen fra Subaru. Meget skuffende siger FDM, der har udført testen. Toyota er i gang med at undersøge sagen og evt. finde en forbedring. (Artiklen opdateret 1. december med uddybende...

fdm-dk.translate.goog

Here is the table from same magazine testing other EVs in same test in similar temperatures. This is for base FWD model, same test with AWD did 215km.

They are driving the vehicle to 0 km left, so part of the problem is the buffer of 10% battery left after 0 km is shown.
But even if Toyota changes this so 0 km is 0 km, 10% will not make it even average, it will still be one of the worst performing vehicles in the test. For instance ID.4.Pro can do 30% more in winter and they are both rated the same in the WLTP test.

Even EQA which uses traditional vehicle chassis can go further in winter but is rated a lot less.

Toyota actually claimed in their press release that they have best winter performance due to new heating, it seems they really did not test this well.

 

[ssun30]

The fact they even greenlight the production of a nonfunctional product like this is baffling.

 

[spwolf]

The fact they even greenlight the production of a nonfunctional product like this is baffling.

this is also at 110 kmh.

For many Soouth European countries and Germany, this would be well below the speed limit. Our speed limit is 130kmh, so at 4c outside and awd model, it would be well, well under 200km, around 160km likely. Then if you consider that charging almost stops at 80%, means that for longer trips, your next part of the trip after charge to 80% would be around 120 km, and you would have to charge every 120km.

Tesla is by no means perfect and having to charge during long trips every 250km in cold weather is very annoying, I cant even imagine what would it be if it is 100-120km trip legs and then 30m charge again?

This is like Leaf or Zoe.

 

[ssun30]

I'm curious about the same test done on the UX300e.

A Chinese media tested the C-HR EV to do 240km at similar temp and 105km/h. And they started at 80% SOC.

So the bZ4X managed to be (a lot) less efficient than the C-HR EV?

 

[spwolf]

I'm curious about the same test done on the UX300e.

A Chinese media tested the C-HR EV to do 240km at similar temp and 105km/h. And they started at 80% SOC.

So the bZ4X managed to be (a lot) less efficient than the C-HR EV?

that makes sense - it is a lot larger vehicle, so aero will be worse in the end. They use same motors and transaxle and now the same battery? Only difference is slower charging to 80%.

There are old UX300e tests, it is passable only and everyone tests it as city car so nobody pays attention to highway.

 

[ssun30]

that makes sense - it is a lot larger vehicle, so aero will be worse in the end. They use same motors and transaxle and now the same battery? Only difference is slower charging to 80%.

There are old UX300e tests, it is passable only and everyone tests it as city car so nobody pays attention to highway.

The C-HR EV still uses the 54.3kWh battery.

 

[CRSKTN]

Ssun how do you feel about the ux300e with the improved battery chemistry?

 

[spwolf]

The C-HR EV still uses the 54.3kWh battery.

it is not the same test then. Table above is correct for European conditions and way of driving, 50kwh car would do much worse.
Y LR is good example, 355km is really a max with 100% of battery use in these conditions and this vehicle is usually top end by the numbers in all tests.

My P would do similar numbers to that, not anything more for sure, even at 110kmh which is really low.

 

[ssun30]

Ssun how do you feel about the ux300e with the improved battery chemistry?

It should have been that way since 2020

 

[CRSKTN]

It should have been that way since 2020

It's been a crazy couple of years.

 

[spwolf]

Here you go for pre-facelift UX300e, 2022 test.

How Cold Winter Temperatures Affect Electric Cars Driving Range | Carscoops

EVs get much worse consumption for short trips in the winter but that improves the farther you go

www.carscoops.com

 

[spwolf]

(in these tests it is best to compare vs rivals in same test and not other tests, because they are all done differently).