Featured Toyota bZ4X Specifications Revealed

According to the European site, the Cargo area has an adjustable deck. Not quite sure what exactly that means but I assume if you raise the deck then there is space underneath.

According to the European site again, an 11kW charger will be available starting Q4 2022.

I would add:
bZ4X has a Subaru assisted designed off road AWD mode called XMODE. Nothing on the dash of the Ioniq 5 has those mode selections.
Ioniq 5 non-AWD version is rear wheel drive. bZ4X is front wheel drive on the non-AWD.


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I took it to mean something like the HHR where the deck can be used as a higher shelf.

Most cars with hatches have space under the floor. We'll have to wait to see how much each has.

Which may not come to North America. The Zoe had a 27kW charger in the beginning, because Europe had 'Level 3' AC chargers.

 

So, I have been seeing some estimates on the pricing of bZ4x to be "high $30,000-range with loaded models cresting the $40,000 mark". If this turns out to be true and depending on what happens to the new EV incentive laws next year, it may be a strong contender for Mach-E on my shortlist.
2022 Toyota bZ4X: What We Know So Far

 

I think you have a couple of things confused here. While I expect the grand majority of drivers to prefer high regen after they get used to it. I agree there should be settings, I was just saying its not like an ice where there are efficiency and nvh trade offs, where you are going to want to shift it on the fly very often. . It took my gf driving 6 times before I switched her to standard regen on the the tesla which is for one for one pedal driving from the setting that is more like an automatic transmission.. Here is an analysis by one of the car magazines.
The Five Best EVs for One-Pedal Driving | Automobile Magazine

Note that they liked the tesla and jaguar best despite not having that change regen braking with paddle shifters.

One thing you notice right away in a tesla versus a Toyota hsd is how much better the brakes feel. Its part of the kiss principal - the accelerator pedal controls the regen, and you get full regen by lifting off, the brake is a brake which is simple to program. Well any programming is bound to have mistakes, my gen 3 prius had software problems that I needed to take to the dealer to reprogram. Tesla somehow got a bug that made stopping distance too long they had fixed it by the time I got mine 3 years ago, but more complications mean more room for bugs. The blending on the brake pedal properly is hard to do. If you have 4 levels that means 4 different places for bugs to be introduced and makes testing more difficult.

We can look to toyota's rav4 prime to see toyota as an example. The paddle shifters work to turn the cvt into a more conventional virtual geared engine/transmission. They however do not control regen as other companies has done. Motortrend said toyota got the brake pedal software right in the rav4 prime and it works better than the rav4 hybrid, probably because toyota had the option to keep it in a higher power regen before mechanical brakes were applied. Add variable regen and not only do you change what those paddles mean but now you require more software.

I don't think it would hurt sales to have paddle adjusted regen, but would it help? I doubt it. Tesla has even gotten rid of the option to set in cars made in the last year, which I think is a mistake. Still it has not hurt sales where there is an 11 month wait for a base model 3 or model Y in the US and they have raised prices to profit from the demand. I think toyota would not get 1 more sale for paddle shifters.

I do think they should have 3 options selectable somewhere - standard (whether 0.2 g or a higher figure) with brakes only being friction, a light with lower regen to be like a standard automatic transmission with blended braking, and a coast with blended braking. That would make it useful for just about all drivers. That would handle the all the things that motortrend liked about the Hyundai system. Then again on the low setting on my tesla it just gets less efficient at braking and the regen is not blended at the brake pedal. That would be simplest from a brake software point of view. ;-)

I fully expect that if they do other parts of the bz4x right, they will be battery constrained until 2025 not demand constrained.

In my before prius, lexus gs, I had paddle shifters to control engine braking on twisty road. There was a trade off between efficiency and picking a lower gear for this. With regen there is no trade off it is most efficient at a fairly high level of regen.

 

I think more details will be revealed on November 17 when bZ4X’s sister SUBARU SOLTERRA is revealed at the Los Angeles Auto Show at 10:45 AM PT (1:45 PM ET). They (Subaru) are emphasizing the Symmetrical AWD and off-road capabilities. I’m not sure if @Tideland Prius is going to make a separate Subaru heading in other cars, or leave this as a catch all for the Toyobaru or Subayota twins. Subaru may have differing options and packages but the specs should stay the same as well as the some missing details can be filled in for those who do not want to wait for Toyota’s official unveil on December 2nd.


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Having pure-coast when releasing the accelerator plus paddles to control regen would be a MAJOR selling point for me, driving in the mountains a lot.

 

There is a Subaru reveal tonight... livestream starts at 7:30 PM Eastern

 

Look I understand reading comprehension is not your strong point, but pleases stop commenting on my post.

I know you are not interested in this car and just want to make inane comments. If they are going to sell all they can make because they don't have the battery capacity to make enough, I doubt having you as a sale would help. You already said you would not buy the car because you need 600 miles of range and this falls far short of that. We know the paddle shifters would not get you as a customer. You just want to tell me I'm wrong. Well, who cares.

This is my last comment to you. Please ignore my posts.

 

I am interested in this car.

But I have my PHEV for long trips off-grid. This would be a second car because my home now has a second driver (my son is now driving).

Not by themselves but they are a selling point, as I said.

 

I've been downshifting automatics for steep hills before owning a car with a 'manual' mode. I don't shift often, but have found paddle shifters much more convenient than taking a hand off the wheel to move a lever or push a button. There is also a plus to them in the Camry in the way the gear selector was designed. Use the paddles, and the car goes back to D after coming to a stop. With the shifter, you have to move it to S mode before being able to select different gears, and then shift it back for plain automatic operation.

I probably did more downshifting in the HHR by the shifter because it only activated DFCO with higher engine speed, so I don't hold paddle shifters as a must have. I do see them as a nice feature to quickly access higher regen when needed.

And two of them had paddle shifters. Then with having to hit the brake pedal to get full regen, does the Jaquar really have one peddle driving.

This wasn't a pure study of just the one pedal driving. The i3 only got a honorary mention because of the car's strange design, and the Model S Performance was chosen over another Tesla because of the car's acceleration.

I like having the brake peddle just control friction brakes, and the accelerator control the motor/generator. This is how locomotives do it.

Putting in paddle shifters for regen control gives more places for errors to occur, and automatic transmissions were less reliable. Until the time that they weren't. Paddle shifters integrating into the control software of transmissions has been going on for awhile now. They are an added cost but they don't have to be as complicated as GM's regen on demand with braking levels on top of the level of regen selected by other controls. The paddle shifters could just be an auxiliary control of the shifter, buttons, or whatever is the main control interface.

Back to KISS. The Rav4 Prime is a hybrid first, so using the shifter and paddles to control the system just like it does in the hybrid model is the easiest and cheapest solution. While it does have a bigger battery, it very likely isn't one pedal driving big.

BEVS aren't hybrids, and most of those available already have a way of controlling regen braking levels aside from the foot peddles.

Tesla's sales situation isn't the norm. treating BEVs as a real competitor to the ICE, and building a charging network as given them a sales advantage over the others that isn't directly tied to their cars' design. Once wanted one when they were to only real option. i don't want a BEV for long trips, or more accurately, I don't want to compromise on one car instead of having two better suiting for their intended roles.

Toyota and others do make use paddle shifters in some trims and models. Keeping things familiar from the ICE models can make it easier for some buyers to switch to BEV.

I think you are right about paddle shifters and sales now. Demand is greater than supply, so little things about a model aren't needed to sway a buyer. Yet a time will come when supply isn't constrained. Then manufacturers will need little things to differentiate from the competition.

When not using a traditional transmission shifter, which some ICE cars are even doing, you can a have paddle as a secondary way of selecting those options. I think having extra degrees of regen would be nice, but have yet to try out one pedal driving.

Intellectually, I accept this. Yet, it will depend on how well one peddle driving works in a car model that will get an individual using it. A list of EVs that do it well implies that there is some that don't.

 

Another marketing reveal but the T-Sub SOLTERRA reveal did post a new spec, ground clearance @8.3 in (210mm). That’s actually better than all the hybrid SUVs in Toyota’s lineup except it ties the RAV4 Prime. For reference, most of Subaru’s gas only lineup is a little higher, like my daughter’s Ascent is 8.7 in.

Of interest is this, and it’s sister bZ4X, vehicle has the highest rear motor output in the entire T-Sub line-up. This makes me think it will be rear drive centric like most of Subaru’s AWD lineup. I’m thinking out loud on this and have no direct proof, but it makes sense with symmetrical front and rear motor output.


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The soltera photo's from earlier in the week showed paddle shifters which car and driver says are to control regen.

I expect that you would quickly learn how to use the accelerator pedal to control deceleration (regen braking) if its implemented well. Then you would not need to hit a button or a paddle shifter to change accelerator mapping, you just would lift up more and access the higher regen.

I am commenting because the bz4x interior photos did not show paddle shifters. I don't think they are important and shouldn't stop people from buying the car. Who knows it may change to be like the sister suberu which has them. If it doesn't you can always buy the subaru instead ;-)

I'll let you decide. The tesla lets you decide what happens when the car slows down to very low speeds with options of creep like an automatic transmission, roll like being in neutral, and hold which applies the brakes until the accelerator is depressed. The jaguar from my understanding, I've never driven one, goes into the roll mode. That means it will stop on a flat road, but slower than a tesla in hold, but may roll backwards or forwards on up hills or down, so a driver would need to manually hit the brake when going very slow.

The bz4x keeps its eco button from the prius, which I don't quite understand in an bev. Tesla allows full acceleration and "chill" mode which limits power to around the power of the bz4x. I drive mine in chill mode when I'm with my gf, so I don't accidentally accelerate too fast and get her car sick. I think many will be happy with that level of power in these suvs.

 

• 
  
  Thanks for the details!
  
  280 miles WLTP is fair but not great — probably around 225ish miles real-world. Of course that depends heavily upon … everything: speed, temperatures, driving conservativeness, etc.
  
  Pondering: 71.4KWh battery probably leaves around 60KWh usable. So, an efficiency of somewhere around 225 miles per 60KWh, or somewhere around 3.7ish miles/KWh.
  
  The part they left out is that they’ll make maybe 1000 total per year for the North-American market. That, since they’ve been pouring lots of money into fuel-cell research, and next to nothing into securing high volumes of battery cells.

 

Assuming old chemistry, like NCA or any of the NMC varieties. All require a buffer for longevity. LFP is an example of a new chemistry that eliminates the top buffer entirely. You routinely recharge to 100% without penalty.

 

Some sources say they are using 64 kwh usable state of charge, but of course this isn't in production yet, we can only guess at efficiency. Tesla uses 92% of battery capacity, this would be a slightly more conservative 90%. There are charging losses in epa's range so it would be lower than your estimate if battery capacity and range are as you think. Still its the range that is important once you own the bev. I really don't notice much on my electric bill, but I did add more solar than I would have if I didn't have a plug-in. I fully expect that toyota/subaru designed this where they could add more battery, but as you say toyota does not have that much battery capacity yet. When they get it, they may start selling a longer range and more powerful version. That would make sense for the off road market.

I think they will make more than that for the north american market, but they will be battery constrained until at least 2024 if they do this right.

 

Hmmm… not sure how you got that…?

71.4KWh battery probably has a 58-60KWh usable capacity, so if its 232 miles, then that would be around 3.9miles/KWh.

However, 232 miles is probably about right for EPA, but real-world probably more like 220ish. So more like 3.7ish?

 

I’ve been very skeptical of the rumors that they’re implementing a steer-by-wire system. Toyota seems waaaaaay too conservative a company to try something like that, but this seems to confirm the rumors!

 

Apparently no frunk.

 

Assumption was that the stated capacity was usable. Until we learn more, capacity and chemistry is just guesses.

 

Steer by wire will not be available in the US. They say it will be available in other markets.