Driving the Toyota BZ4X

I had the chance to recently drive Toyota’s new BZ4X. Its always wonderful to see more EVs out on the market, that’s more choice for consumers. While it is true, it does fast charge slower (I observed 70 kW peak), and the range (I got about 300 km) is less than many similarly priced competitors, its a well put together car that is comfortable to drive. Plus these days, you might get it for a lot less than the aforementioned competitors (source).

Lets start with the BZ4X’s flaws. Chiefly, these involve the competition, namely that for the price, you can get both better range and faster DC charging speeds. As the table below illuminates, there is some truth in these. Say for the same 55k, you could get either the higher trim BZ4X, or an entry level IONIQ 5, or an entry level Tesla Model Y.

Model	MSRP [$, CAD]	EPA range [km]	Max Charging speed, [kw]
Toyota BZ4X	50k-55k (source)	up to 404 (source)	150 (source)
Hyundai IONIQ 5	55k-60k (source)	up to 488 (source)	350 (source)
Tesla Model Y	55k-70k (source)	up to 460 (source)	250 (source)

The above critique, assumes one would pay the manufacturers suggested retail price (MSRP). In practice, that’s not always so. If the car is “hot”, dealers find ways to add to the MSRP, usually by incentivizing/forcing you to go with a higher spec than what you need. For example, a ceramic coating might be added, floor mats or other accessories that you do not need. A friend recently ordered a performance model 3, and took delivery in less than a week, while Tesla.com suggests Id have to wait a month for the basic version (source). Contrast that with a rumours of deep discounts for the BZ4X (source), a car that’s well, not so hot.

Thus my dear reader, you need to decide for yourself, if you are willing to pay more for either the above mentioned fine competitors. Its worth discussing briefly what these two things mean, namely lower range and slower DC fast charging speeds.

But first a bit of a sanity check. A 250 kW capable EV does not mean you will charge at 250 kW. You would need a charging station that can serve such higher powers. Thus it’s worth discussing the charging stations themselves. A quick survey on plugshare shows that there are not that many non-Tesla charging stations that might offer your EV more than 50 kW (source), at least not close to where I live in Toronto,ON. So, the Toyota BZ4X and the Hyundai IONIQ 5 will get the same exact charging speed at a 50 kW station, namely 50 kW.

Now, assuming you could find stations that can serve up more than 250 kW, when does that actually matter? Long motorway journeys, where you are going more than say 300 km (more on range later), to need to charge at all. Id venture that careful timing might reveal some differences at 400 km between the above mentioned trio. At that distance, there might be a charging stop yes, but since 400 km does take at least 4 hours to drive, if you need to charge, it will be a quick stop dominated by human needs.

Once you got past 800 km, there difference would be more stark. Looking at Bjorn Nylands 1000 km challenge results, we see the BZ4X finishing in 11 hrs:50 min, compared to 9:55 for the Tesla Model Y RWD, and 10:00 for the IONIQ 5 (source), that’s almost two hours slower on a 10 hour run. Noticable? Perhaps, much depends on if you can intertwine bio breaks with charging stops, or perhaps do some enjoyable sight seeing?

I found the driving quite pleasant. I used both the regular and eco driving modes, and of the two, I liked the comfort of eco. Notably the climate control system also had an eco button, which I thought was a nice way to nudge you to rely on the seat heaters more than brute cabin heat. Also, the heated windshield was a nice feature that undoubtedly will save electrons come wintertime. Compared to the Tesla, I do like buttons, as I find it easier to feel my way for this or that, while keeping my eyes on the road.

The back seat feels spacious. Even with my 6′ 4″ frame, and the front seat set in my driving position. The two USB-C back seat charge ports should keep the kids fully charged on long road trips. I found the trunk spacious, there is a small under-floor storage area which we used for charge cables. The lack of a glove box caused some confusion, in particular when looking for the owners manual. We did eventually find in below a shelf in the centre console.

While skipping the glove box does add to the passenger side legroom, even impressing my teenage daughter, it does take some getting used to, looking elsewhere for say owners manuals, usb cables or other stuff you might keep around your car.

We estimated range to be “at least 300km” in our testing. We felt that the Bz4X was a “solid 300 km car”, if you really drive carefully and use those two eco buttons you could probably nudge that slightly past 400 km.

Charging wise, we tested it at several nearby DC fast charging stations. We never got close to the 90 kW (AWD version somehow charges slower than the FWD version), advertised charging speed, hitting 70 kW at 40% state of charge (SOC) with a reasonably warm battery after a 2 hour drive. Once it got to 80% SOC, it slows down a lot, to less than 20 kW. At that SOC, even my 2018 Leaf charges a little quicker, it really slows above 90%, to a point where AC charging might be faster.

For those in North America, Tesla and Toyota have reached an agreement for Toyota to adopt the NACS connector, and thus gain access to some parts of the supercharging network (source). When and how that will play out remains to be seen, particularly given Mr. Musks somewhat novel business practices (https://gsm.ucdavis.edu/blog/tesla-fires-its-supercharger-team-crazy-why).

The BZ4X is a well built car, it handles well, drives well and is very comfortable. It does charge slower, and offer lower ranges than its competitors. But always, you need to think about your use case. Do you see yourself driving more than 800 km in a day on a regular basis (say once a month)? Or is your driving more of a “grocery getter”, around town commuting? For most, its somewhere in the middle. Certainly for myself, where my long road-trips are my once or twice a year, 550 km Mnt-Tremblant runs, for that the BZ4X would do very nicely.