Toyota's bZ4X Under The Skin | Deep Dive Into The New eTNGA Platform

[@alliejr]

I love your technical deep dives, Alex. Keep it up!

[@_CarlosA]

Awesome video! Keep it up, Alex!

[@mark_u]

Loving these cutaway deepdives, Alex! 🤩

[@MistSoalar]

6.6kW onboard charger is probably adequate, but disappointing

[@EVBuyersGuide]

I only charge my EVs at home at 2.4kW and to be honest most Americans could do the same... BUT, yes disappointing because I do also charge my EVs at full speed at the office...

[@dylanyeo3668]

Great video Alex. From your inspection, how easy do you think it would be to replace the entire battery module? (in case of damage, or 10 years down the track when degradation might become significant?)

[@Ducatista10]

Hey Alex, were you able to find out anymore information about the two different batteries (chemistry) and if OTA updates would be able to improve their charging curve/speed (more interested in the CATL battery) since I am getting the Solterra soon! Thanks!

[@Vanilla_Donut]

What's interesting is that it seems Subaru is using the Panasonic battery pack with the 150kW charging limit with their standard AWD. Now this is in Canada so unknown about US. So in a way it seems better to go Solterra if you are buying an AWD variant as you get the faster charging.

[@EVBuyersGuide]

In the USA the Solterra gets the CATL pack with 100kW charging.

[@rightlanehog3151]

Alex, Did Toyota give you permission to remove the body from the chassis or did you just use your own initiative?

[@WhollySchiit]

I've moved away from Lexus/Toyota a long time ago. They just don't use high-tech stuff and it was so disappointing when they sold cars equipped with airbag issue knowingly. Now, looking at their eTNGA Platform, it still didn't move away much from classic car frames compared to competitors. Hyundai really did a good job with eGMP and utilizing one of the motors to function as an inverter to provide fast charging at 800v. It doesn't even look that much modular. Such a grandpa's brand...

[@Blind_of_Colour]

Interesting you associate 150 Kw dc fast charging with the Panasonic batteries and 100 Kw dc fast charging with the Chinese batteries. The spec for the Subaru Solterra i.e. AWD) distributed to dealers in Canada specifies 150 Kw dc fast charging and I think it is the same in Europe. You could still be right, and the difference may be in the strength of the battery warranty - offering 90% range retention over 10 years in the US versus only 70% range retention over 10 years elsewhere? Any comment you might have would be appreciated. For some months I have been research EV's very intensely looking at many different reviewers from many countries. My situation demands good ground clearance and AWD and I've pretty well settled on the eTNGA platform. Considering the details of the trims set up for Canada and to be shortly available it looks like Solterra offers faster dc charging, power folding exterior mirrors, electronic interior rear view "mirror"(especially helpful with no rear wiper), more refined regen control (of course!) and better off road body paint protection(of course) , power front passenger seat and driver memory all unavailable in the BZ4X, but all the fancy bits will be available in the coming in RZ 450e + more. Incidentally, in all my research I've concluded you are THE best passenger vehicle reviewer anywhere in the English language..

[@Blind_of_Colour]

The better paint protection(dull body surface around wheel wells) might be what BZ4X is offering on the lower trims as almost an implicit marketing put-down of the actually better equipped Solterra.

[@Aku-pm8cp]

is the 402 HP figure for the RZ450E? That's very impressive!

[@EVBuyersGuide]

It appears to be

[@motch6182]

Thanks for the explanation of the different charging speeds! A bit annoying, but hopefully that means the AWD version will last longer 😜

[@jywn]

that might not be the case, the FWD uses panasonic, but the AWD uses battery from CATL

[@leicrossehxvii9981]

what type of battery toyota is using in bz4x?

[@WakeUpAmerican000s]

Hmmm - with that huge hump of inverter and motor sticking up at the rear wheels, how does Toyota or Subaru make a SUV-ish platform with fold-down rear seat to open up large cargo area when the thing is equipped for AWD?

[@kluas948]

Great info

[@jasonhillgiant]

Are the battery cells prismatic or cylinders?

[@EVBuyersGuide]

Neither, they are pouch cells which have their layers on the same plane rather than "jelly rolled" as in a prismatic cell. This layout is more energy dense than a cylindrical cell in terms of real estate, although the 18650 cells Tesla uses have about 80% greater energy density per kg of weight than some cells at ~248-257 Ah/kg, CATL, SKI and LG all have pouch NCM cells with higher energy density by that measure as well.

[@shinybaldy]

The rapid pace at which Toyota whipped this one up should make many brands very nervous. Toyota may not be the first. But when they do? They have the engineering chops to get it done plus Toyota scale/QA

[@Javierm0n0]

They've been building towards this since the prius. Many people derided them for doing so because of myriad "reasons". This thing looks pretty neat too.

[@barryw9473]

This thing was whipped up a bit too fast to be equipped with competitive features. Toyota has no plans to scale manufacturing as it makes too much money from ICE.

[@EVBuyersGuide]

This was not rapid, development started 7 years ago

[@barryw9473]

@@EVBuyersGuide ugh. You just confirmed this thing is already obsolete.

[@EVBuyersGuide]

@@barryw9473 I would say that the pricing and position is important and if you look at it through that narrow lens it looks much better. It's the least expensive AWD EV by a decent margin and somehow nobody cares that the base battery Mach E charges slowly...

[@pritambissonauth2181]

I thought the battery cells would have been made by BYD!

[@benjaminsmith2287]

That's for the for-China bZ3 sedan model.

[@emilypeters8888]

oh do you service the battery when it dies no wants a disposable car

[@ouch1011]

Do you replace the engine in an ICE vehicle when it dies?

[@leesmith9299]

proper tesla killer

[@rkgsd]

I no longer wonder why Elon Musk has taken his focus off Tesla and become obsessed with buying Twitter.

[@EVAddicted]

Disappointing small thermal plates. Less than in Chevy Bolt.

[@j3fron]

Yeah this car in my country have almost twice the price of ionic 5 😂😂😂

[@Mekuso8]

Thanks for this video, very informative! Some minor suggestions: Consider how you pronounce certain words to make them easier to understand. You pronounce "Toyota" like "Toda" (it took me a while to understand what you meant), and pronouncing kilowatts as "kay-double-u" is longer and more difficult to understand.

[@ronb4633]

Sorry Alex, I can’t continue listening after I heard the 6.6kW onboard charger. Japan is just going EV kicking and screaming.

[@trainingtheworld5093]

It is disappointing. Toyota bet the farm on hydrogen but it’s dead. They whipped up this model pretty quick and you can tell that by them using off the shelf parts from other models. I would class the bz4x as a leaf competitor. Probably would be reliable and comfortable but not exciting.

[@alanmay7929]

Lol…… how is it disappointing!? They are going to improve on the charging it’s not that hard!

[@veowsaku]

RWD would have been better

[@ajoykumardas6398]

This is a toy car. I am very sad to buy this car because its only problem is charging. First of all it takes long time to charge if 50% charged with level 3 it will take 2 hours 30 minutes. Then you have to keep the car at full stop which you have to suffer in extreme cold, heat. After that if you start the car and turn on the heat and AC then you can run the car for one hundred miles. So don't waste your time and money buying this car. thank you😅😂😂😢

[@EVBuyersGuide]

If you're sad about buying a car I wouldn't recommend buying it. -Travis

[@challenge1022]

Such a sorry attempt

[@christianabraham217]

So Toyota is already behind with technology, the Cars coming out of china are way more advance.

[@4literv6]

So a 2022 ev but with no frunk despite being on a ground up ev platform. Dcfc speeds of only 100-150kwhs, just 6.6kwhs home ac charging. Only 220-250 miles of range, likely no battery pre conditioning. No standard heated seats or steering wheel. Cloth seats and dashboard, lots of hard plastics, those hideous dual tone painted fenders. Top spec is $50k with the destination charge. They are almost out of the full tax credit due to lots of hybrid sales. Very slow acceleration time's for its class and competitor's offerings. And to top it all off? Toyoduh says about 7k in total for the U.S. in all of 2022. Imagine the stealership markups for these. 🤔

[@Curryolla]

It does have heat pump...but the rest of your assessment is spot on. Pretty disappointing from Toyota, but expected given how tepid Toyota is about BEVs.

[@WakeUpAmerican000s]

With those meager specs, the stealerships might not get what they want. Toyota's Hybrid drivetrains have matured over 20 years and are so efficient, reliable, and long-lived, one could own a very decent Lexus Hybrid with more space, comfortable go-anywhere transportation and much better people/cargo hauling capability for the price of one of these. For the older folks who don't drive that much, Toyota plug-in hybrids make a lot more sense at the moment.

[@StevenHoagland]

Every bZ4X has a heat pump.

[@EVBuyersGuide]

Heat pump is standard and it compares well against *comparably priced* competitors. You'll find faster charging elsewhere but not for this price

[@EVBuyersGuide]

On their website, press releases, and window stickers.

[@ajoykumardas6398]

This is a toy car. I am very sad to buy this car because its only problem is charging. First of all it takes long time to charge if 50% charged with level 3 it will take 2 hours 30 minutes. Then you have to keep the car at full stop which you have to suffer in extreme cold, heat. After that if you start the car and turn on the heat and AC then you can run the car for 100 hundred miles. So don't waste your time and money buying this car. thank you😢😢😢😂

[@barryw9473]

Disagree with logic for no front trunk. There is a ton of room in front of power electronics. This warmed over RAV4 explains the poor design philosophy-as does Toyota’s reluctance to bring a competitive mass produced EV to market. I bet this thing will barely trickle into the market due to various lame excuses from Toyota.

[@valdius85]

It's just make the front end longer and smaller total cargo volume. This is for all designs.

[@barryw9473]

@@valdius85 if so, dumb design.

[@EVBuyersGuide]

There's no way around it, an EV with a front trunk has a longer nose than a design without it. And adding that extra length up front doesn't yield as much space as adding the length in the back.

[@barryw9473]

@@EVBuyersGuide if power electronics were miniaturized and placed under car/ near battery pack instead of putting very ancient looking charger and inverters where the RAV4 ICE goes, the front could have been shortened, saving weight, and enabled a larger rear area if wanted. Toyota clearly put it’s less capable engineers on the design team.

[@EVBuyersGuide]

@@barryw9473 Commonality of parts is important in order for the EV to be affordable. Sure they could have but it would have increased cost. Also, front ends generally have minimum dimensions for the crash structures.

[@aesir0784]

Suggestion? RUN THE OTHER WAY. I cannot stress enough how much i hate It. Realistic range? At 75 mph 120 miles... What a God d*mn joke... A "quick" charge takes well over 2 hours... It's not a Realistic platform and a complete waste of your time and effort. Buy or lease a Tesla.