Toyota bZ4X review: bZ as a bee

Toyota’s first mainstream electric car is destined for a hard life in Singapore. The bZ4X isn’t on sale here, but will be entering a car-sharing scheme instead.

You’ll be able to rent one in June, particularly if you live in Tengah, the eco-town where Borneo Motors is fixing to make a fleet of electrified Toyotas available for short-term leases. Details are in the works, but The Business Times estimates that it would go for S$200 a day or so.

The car’s name sounds more like an employee number, but when unpacked it tells you much about Toyota’s ambitions for it.

The “bZ” bit stands for “beyond Zero”, meaning the Japanese giant has set its sights on what it can do for the planet apart from building zero-emissions vehicles. The “4X” references the fact that this is a crossover car about the size of its RAV4 model, a mechanically unrelated petrol-electric hybrid that happens to be the world’s best-selling Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV).

With that as a reference point, the shark-nosed bZ4X comes off looking pretty impressive. Though the tapering roofline eats into rear headroom somewhat, the Toyota feels fabulously roomy inside. The electric motor that powers its front wheels is much smaller than a combustion engine and gearbox, so it leaves much more space for rear legroom.

Its acceleration is smooth, silent and urgent, which is the sort of thing that people are increasingly flocking to electric cars for. It does ride firmly over the road, the way many cars do when fitted with beefy springs to cope with heavy batteries, but as an everyday driving experience, it’s easy to see most people preferring this over the combustion norm.

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Yet, the bZ4X is by no means a straightforward alternative to a RAV4. Were it to go on sale, it would likely cost at least S$250,000 at today’s Certificate Of Entitlement premiums, making it nearly 15 per cent pricier than its combustion cousin. And that’s with pollution and electric car rebates that lop S$45,000 off its tax bill.

The bZ4X suggests that while Toyota has figured out how to build an attractive, refined and roomy electric car, it is still working out how to build it cheaply enough to make sense for both customers and shareholders.

That has fuelled criticism that the brand is woefully late to the electric car game. Nissan released its first battery-powered car as far back as 2011, while the Korean brands have put plenty of EVs in showrooms and on the road. Toyota was an early investor in Tesla, but somehow disposed of its stake and allowed the American company to become a gorilla under its very nose.

The bZ4X itself has been rocked by an embarrassing scandal, too, after faulty assembly left early units at risk of having their wheels fall off. Still, the company is no stranger to slogging past failure. Its first attempt to crack the US market ended so badly that it pulled out altogether. It went back in swinging, and fustigated America’s carmakers.

And Toyota being Toyota, the bZ4X has a tougher battery than nearly everything out there. It apparently retains more than 90 per cent of its capacity even after 10 years or 240,000 km of use; competitors promise 80 per cent, sometimes 70.

People who buy cars, whether petrol or electric, do care about things like longevity. Yet, Borneo’s intention to sweat the bZ4X through car-sharing instead of selling it outright might be a canny one. It allows the company to study how robust the car’s technology is while giving the public a chance to sample electric propulsion, Toyota-style, but removes the burden of having to hawk it for what would be an uncompetitive price.

The bZ4X may be destined for a hard life, but at least it won’t be the subject of a hard sell.

Toyota bZ4X

Electric Motor / layout Single / Front

Motor power / torque 204 hp / 266 Nm

Battery type / net capacity Lithium-ion, 71.4 kWh

Normal Charge Type / Time 7 kW AC / 9.5 hours 10 to 100 per cent

Max Fast Charge Type / Time 150 kW DC / 30 mins 0 to 80 per cent

Electric Range 435 km (WLTP)

0-100km/h 7.5 seconds

Top Speed 160 km/h (limited)

Efficiency 16.9 kWh/100 km

Agent Borneo Motors Singapore

Price Not for sale