Toys4RJill

Mazda too. RAV4 prime is rebadged a Suzuki too.

Lwerewolf

Tesla's inverters (power units or whatever) still fail. Toyota's double-sided cooling inverter IGBTs (ls600h+, not the prius3) practically never ever fail. The power numbers going through the motors on their higher power hybrids are around 250kw (at least on mine - 125kw "regen" from one motor, a bit more "traction" into the other due to battery assist) - a consequence of how their eCVT works is that they need to have some pretty powerful EV hardware - there are many good reasons why they're often used for DIY EV projects, besides the obvious high availability. Their Ni-MH battery packs rarely if ever fail, despite not really having any sort of cell-level BMS. They've had li-ion hybrid packs in the EU-spec prius prime and the 3rd gen plugin for quite some time now. Fun fact - everything that really matters is made in-house.

The "complex software" part is way too funny to comment on.

As others have mentioned - Toyota doesn't really do high performance, REALLY doesn't do high power (excluding the gr yaris), and people still buy corollas, camries, rav4s, highlanders, land cruisers, RX/ES/UX/NX, etc... I wonder why.

Reliability-wise, I have this weird feeling that the ongoing (and worsening) parts shortage is going to really emphasize the reliability factor of cars - not fun having your in-warranty vehicle sitting at the lot, waiting for parts weeks (currently - if lucky) at a time.

EZZ

Tesla power inverter motor failures are still very rare. Yes it happens but it usually happens at the beginning of a car's life cycle as its a factory defect. The motors that have been running for awhile seem to hold up very well...lots of high mileage Teslas on the forums. I can't say the same thing for trim or other things like window motors...those things Tesla does not do as well

TangoRed

you’re mixing EPA figures with WLTP. bZ4X will be lower on EPA.

Motorola

Citation needed. More importantly, most people buy CUV's with AWD, and every AWD competitor sold comes with around 300HP at minimum. Nobody is going to buy an AWD bZ4X when it's significantly slower than all its competitors unless it's significantly cheaper. Having a Toyota badge alone isn't sufficient to sway people to buy this over any one of its superior competitors.

A "top end version" would be Mustang Mach E GT or EV6 GT- cars that have around 500 HP. Let's have Toyota try to get near 300 HP first like every other AWD competitor first before even dreaming of it being able to compete at the top end.

Motorola

What's really funny is thinking the thermal management system in a slug like the Prius is any way comparable to the ones found in a Tesla. And if Toyota can manage the thermals, where is the 300 HP motor setup in bZ4X?

lol, in what universe is 300 HP "high performance"? Half the cars on the list you mention make around that much power. Try selling someone an RX with <200 HP and see if they'll buy it.

This isn't about performance, this is about matching its competitors on the bare basics.

Toys4RJill

I think car and driver had this exact problem.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

Predictable comments i see...

agreed.

Agreed.

agreed although not a yoke fan except for race cars.

I'd say no chance of that.

why dangerous? Sounds better than tesla's wrap your arms in knots with the yoke deal.

Toys4RJill

They are not using the same motors from the hybrids. The motors are all new. Mirai uses the Lexus RX450h motor, but battery models are all new motors

spwolf

it seems like you are making a lot of claims without researching anything about them. All the base EV models from VW, Skoda, Nissan, Renault, KIA, Hyundai are similar in acceleration to BZ4X, mostly little bit slower, Koreans are little bit faster. Those are the models that sell the best.

It is quite possible that BZ4X will get faster option, just like ID4 got, 6 months later.

Motorola

The bZ4X specs are all online for everyone to see. No need for me to make anything up. On your end though...

That's not the part I'm asking for a citation for (it was your claim of how these "slower vehicles that make most of their EV sales"- give me the actual numbers. While you're at it, give me your source for what makes the bZ4X range and efficiency "class-leading."), but I'll dive into it anyway. Here are the base model competitors and their manufacturer-claimed 0-60's:

bZ4X: 8.4s
ID.4: 8.5s (real world time: 7.4-7.6s)
Mach E: 5.8s
Ioniq 5: 7.5s
EV6: Same as above

So not counting the Model Y since no pure RWD version is available (emphasizing how silly it is to even compare these midsize CUV's that aren't AWD lol), the bZ4X manages to only match the ID4, which runs over a second faster than its claimed time in real world testing. What is there to celebrate here?

Except that ID4's 300HP AWD version was announced from the very beginning at its global launch back in October of last year (timestamp 9:09).


If Toyota had such a model, they would have already announced it.

jer

One thing I noticed is that the Toyota has a heat pump which will allow significant heating of the cabin in cold weather. This is something that a lot of the other EV's do not have/offer. My understanding is that it is also more efficient for cooling, as that it will not use up power as quickly as those vehicles that don't have this. If this is true, it should help with maintaining the mileage advertised no matter what outside temperature is. As an example, I was watching a review of another electric vehicle that advertised 310 miles per charge, but with A/C running in 90+ temperatures, actual mileage was just over 200 miles per charge. Living where I would run the A/C most of the year that is a very big discepancy.

Motorola

Model Y, the Korean twins, and ID4 all have heat pumps- problem is that the heat pump isn't available for U.S.-spec ID4's. I think it's in the Q4 E-tron though.

Here's hoping Toyota won't be boneheaded enough to remove the heat pump for U.S. markets like VW.

AMIRZA786

My wife's Ioniq EV uses a heat pump, so heating/cooling uses about 4 to 6 percent of the available power

spwolf

Problem with ID4 heat pump is that it is not effective enough, they messed something up with design.
Even Teslas heat-pump is nothing eartshattering. So Toyota's claims about efficiency are interesting there.

They already mentioned heat pump and floor heater in the US press release.