Toyota's small electric SUV is much-revised, much more efficient, and much better.
See full article...
See full article...
And the award for the most improved EV goes to… the 2026 Toyota bZ
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
"unusable" is relative, but you are absolutely correct. For the longest time I thought all EV batteries degraded quickly based on reading about Leaf problems, and it was here on the Ars forums that I learned the truth.
Upvote
4
(4
/
0)
It really depends on the area, if there's multiple dealers to choose from, and if you're dealing with the salespeople or the shop, and whether it's warranty work or not.
Our local Kia dealer is full of annoying "high-power salespeople" who won't give you a straight answer to anything, won't write any prices down, and will hound you for weeks after your "just looking around" visit. They've turned me off Kia for over a decade now.
Our local Hyundai dealer is the opposite on the sales side, very easy to deal with. The shop is excellent with great services and lots of perks ... for warranty work. Anything not covered by warranty, though, they'll nickel and dime you on everything, tack on extra "diagnostics" charges, and basically see how much money they can wrangle out of you before you finally give up. We don't use them for anything mechanical now that our Elantra is out of warranty. But, we'll probably still check them out first for our next vehicle (looking for a used Ioniq 5 or 6) because the sales side is so nice.
Upvote
4
(4
/
0)
The 60% of max range estimate typically comes from a couple things.
1) They are assuming you are starting charging before you get to 0% range left and that you are stopping charging by 80% (at the latest) as DC fast charging tapers for pretty much all batteries the higher you charge. How much taper and exactly when varies but it's basically universal that you don't get nearly as good performance going from 80-100% vs 10-80%. In some cars it may even take longer to do that 80-100% than it did to go from 10-80%. In many cases you might be better off only charging 10-50% and doing more stops as long as chargers allow for it because the charging speed is already noticeably slowing down at 50%. You might hit 250 kW peak and be at 100kW or lower at 50%.
2) Then they are assuming less efficient results due to being on a road trip. High speeds on the highways, especially between population centers like you'll often do on a road trip, definitely reduce the efficiency of any vehicle. In straight ICEs it isn't really noticeable because city driving is pretty inefficient too but I'm sure you could find examples where an ICE doing 75+ on the highway is getting worse MPG than driving around town. BEVs definitely notice it and doing 75/80 in our Leaf Plus is probably going to be closer to 150 mile usable range than the 200+ it's rated for and will estimate in daily driving conditions.
Those two things combined can easily mean you are looking at 60% or less of the rated EPA range from a charging stop in an EV. If you are really charger hopping to maximize good peak charging you might be stopping every 100 miles on a 300+ mile rated car. Not to say you have to do things that way but it is going to be much quicker than charging to very high state of charge on every stop. How much depends on the specifics of the vehicle.
Upvote
0
(2
/
-2)
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)
I'm looking forward to a future random EV review having a trombone or two in the corner of trunk.
Whether it's full-sized or a toy is left for Gitlin to decide. Easter eggs are the best.
Upvote
6
(6
/
0)
I haven’t driven any of the new three, those were all done by freelancers. The bZ is a lot better than the Lexus.
Upvote
7
(7
/
0)
My experience test-driving a Hyundia Ioniq 5 was quite negative, the car was fine but the dealership was the big reason I didn’t buy one. Every interaction starting in 2021 was a huge pain in the neck. From a refusal to talk to me until they got my email and text number, to being told they were slapping $5000 on top the Ioniq 5 price and wouldn’t even let me test drive one unless I bought it sight unseen, to the avalanche of spam emails and texts from every single person working there until I blocked them all. Then when I again tried to reserve a car for a test drive in 2024 they didn't even bother charging the trim level I reserved and didn’t have the color promised on the website. No one could be bothered to tell me that the car would lock itself to my home charger or how to get it unlocked when I called in a panic. Etc, etc, etc.
Upvote
4
(4
/
0)
Fine then. My experience at the Ford dealer in Colorado was fine. They were nice and helpful, the manager sat with me and carefully went through the modern screen-centric user interface and all of the EVs specific features that I didn’t understand. Our sales guy understood EVs and used to sell Nissan Leafs. They answered our calls after we bought the car too, when we had questions about how something or other worked. They had the vehicles charged and they had a line-up with dozens of slightly different Mach-Es ready to buy (but no GTs or Rallies.) Actually buying the car and dealing with the finance guy trying to load up the dealer add-ons was a migraine-inducing all-day experience although I did get a 0% interest loan. We left a good review on several review sites.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
On the plus side this EV has real door handles!
People who like Toyotas and Toyota dealerships will flock there to buy this car by the millions. (Speaking of dealership reputations.) It’s enough like the other Toyotas people have been buying that customers will be comfortable, let’s hope the experience of finding a charger and getting the battery pre-conditioned won’t sour them on EVs.
People who like Toyotas and Toyota dealerships will flock there to buy this car by the millions. (Speaking of dealership reputations.) It’s enough like the other Toyotas people have been buying that customers will be comfortable, let’s hope the experience of finding a charger and getting the battery pre-conditioned won’t sour them on EVs.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
Exactly...
Toyota's customers was a reliable car... They don't want to take risks on cars chasing Telsa features.
Customers expect the EV to behave like a car.
To drive like a car.
With controls like a car.
Upvote
9
(9
/
0)
You made me laugh as I really dislike the look of the new Toyota/Subaru EV interiors, but I just love a huge touch screen for CarPlay Maps. Also, as evan_s said, the top-down 360° parking camera in a giant screen is a lifesaver for me. The screen needs to be nice and close so I can easily touch it, melting it into the dash would put it too far away. The driver needs a very small screen or dials with just basic info like speed right in front of us, and that can be inset as long as it’s not obscured by the wheel.
HVAC and the volume control absolutely need physical controls in the center dash. For safety. At the VERY LEAST give us permanent icons on the screen so we don’t have to hunt through menus to adjust the vents and heated seats or turn off the music.
Last edited:
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
And this mile per kilowatt hour? No red-blooded American would ever measure efficiency in anything other than furlongs per calorie fortnight.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
This sounds like Stevens Creek. All of their dealerships are notoriously rude and awful. Combining that with the already poor general Hyundai/Kia dealer experience sounds like a recipe for so much fun!
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
- Add bookmark
- Featured
- #135
After shopping this vs the Lexus RZ, I ended up going for the RZ. The other Ars review is for the 550 which is on the extreme end and suffers for it, but the 350 premium is similar to bz limited pricing (paid <45) and addressed several things I didn’t like and other comments covered: no weird top-mounted driver display, the infotainment is better integrated into the dash, and the interior quality was night and day better.
Upvote
2
(3
/
-1)
No 1-pedal driving is really a missed opportunity. I'm having a hard time imagining letting that go in my next car. But it's nice that efficiency is up and cost is reasonable, although that acceleration performance is downright bad in 2026 from an BEV...
I'm also going to have to ask how you could possibly average 8mph driving around DC? Even heading to work during rush hour would probably result in a higher average than that!
I'm also going to have to ask how you could possibly average 8mph driving around DC? Even heading to work during rush hour would probably result in a higher average than that!
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
For the love of Dog, bring back real effing buttons! Climate controls need to be real buttons.
I have the RAV4 Prime and at least it has physical buttons for the climate control. But while the car is mechanically great, every piece of user-facing software is a steaming turd. The bZ looks like yet another step backwards in terms of user interface design. This review says nothing about the actual driver interface. In my view, this is a woeful oversight.
I have the RAV4 Prime and at least it has physical buttons for the climate control. But while the car is mechanically great, every piece of user-facing software is a steaming turd. The bZ looks like yet another step backwards in terms of user interface design. This review says nothing about the actual driver interface. In my view, this is a woeful oversight.
Upvote
1
(2
/
-1)
Haven't tried this one, but the latest Prius interface was surprisingly improved - light years better software than the Toyotas from a couple years ago (lucked out with a brand new rental recently - literally 6-7 miles on odometer when I got it). Really stood out when I got a !#@#$%$%#$ Nissan Sentra the next week and had to suffer through its "interface".
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
Your Trump impression is getting there. It needs more all-capa randomly in the middle of statements though. Saving it for the very end is amateur hour.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
Finally LLMs are starting to be able to really mimic the kind of creative language use that comes from genuine human stupidity.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
I'm in the "never again" camp with Toyota because of their anti-EV lobbying efforts, but I'm glad they're iterating on the bZ. Old people trust Toyota, so they may gain some converts.
Upvote
3
(4
/
-1)
Yesterday one of my students called ours "Freedom Units"
Upvote
0
(0
/
0)
I'm weeping over here in my 23 Mach E GTPE where I average about 2.5 miles per KWH. Of course I use the heater like a normal car and it certainly is a lot more fun to drive than this will be,
I used to average about 4 miles per KWH in my '14 Volt. I saw over 5 numerous times during the summer so even back then the efficiency was possible.
Seems to hit a lot of the marks first time EV buyers will be looking for.
Last edited:
Upvote
3
(4
/
-1)
For a true reference, one uses the 90% platinum-10% iridium banana in Paris.
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
Yes. Any electric will loose some range when running the heat and even an ICE will loose MPG when running the AC. On a 300 + mile BEV the loss shouldn't be too bad and you'll still have a fair bit of range left.
Sitting in the car and charging for 2 1/2 hours shouldn't ever be a thing. DC fast charging should be faster than that and you shouldn't need to use L2 charging in situations where you are staying in the car. What you can do in your car while it's charging varies but most of the time it doesn't matter because you aren't in the car while it's charging. The car is charging while it would be sitting anyway so it doesn't matter. I haven't DC fast charged our Leaf enough times to even know if it can run heat/ac while charging because I've never needed to do so in the two time's I've used it. You also don't need to stay with or in the car when charging. You can start charging and go to the bathroom, get some food, go for a walk to stretch your legs or go to work or into your home.
Public charger infrastructure is improving in many ways. More locations, more chargers at a location, more reliable, faster DC charging. It's a little annoying that there's so many charging networks but if it makes it more accessible that's not a bad thing in the end. Right now the most reliable and always available charger for most EV owners is going to be their own charger installed at their home. As far as costs go DC fast charging isn't necessarily cheap but my home off peak pricing puts my Leafs at ~$0.03 per mile which given local gas prices is the equivalent of >100mpg. I've literally spend $11.16 in DC fast charging in over 2 years of EV ownership and a couple bucks on public L2 charging.
Upvote
1
(1
/
0)
This being a single motor powertrain helps a lot compared to your GT. Smaller wheels, less sticky tires, much less power!
Upvote
3
(3
/
0)
It's almost like you don't have access to Chinese EVs! Here in Australia we have new EVs available for under $20k USD.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
This is a wildly conservative take.
For reference, both my wife and I drive EVs, and I'm more than comfortable going to 15% in my absolutely inefficient car before charging (if necessary). That's still ~30 miles minimum, which is more than enough to reroute in an emergency. And that's in the winter, where I'm lucky to get 2.5 miles/kWh.
I suppose if you're in a charging station desert you could be a little more conservative, but that seems to be increasingly not the case. And apps like ABRP have pretty much solved the problem anyway; we take 4-5 road trips a year and it's been 99 percent reliable every time in locating working chargers and estimating charging times.
I would start at 80% range as a baseline in a near-worst-case scenario and go up from there.
And I say all this as someone that tries to stay in the 10-90% charge curve, which is...fine. Everyone acts like rate drops off like a cliff after 80% but the reality is that it's only the last 5-8% where the rate really starts to suck.
Last edited:
Upvote
4
(4
/
0)
it still looks like a lumpy potato like most of the other electric suv out there I hate it
Upvote
-4
(1
/
-5)
60% might be on the pessimistic side but 80% is doing 5% to 85% which is not optimal on pretty much any BEV.
Pulling some common ones:
Tesla model 3
Peaks at ~170kW. By 50% charge it's down to about half that at ~80kW. By 80% it's down at ~45kW. If there are chargers available and they aren't huge detours you'll be much better off with quicker stops that go 10-40 or 50% than charging up to 80%+.
https://evkx.net/models/tesla/model_3/model_3/chargingcurve/
Chevy Blazer
Peaks a bit over 150kW and keeps that past 30% before dropping down to 125kW by 40% and then manages to hold that to ~55%. Drops down to ~85kW a little after 60% and by 80% it's down to ~60kW and pretty much crashing. Not quite as bad as the Model 3 but still much faster in the bottom half of the pack.
https://evkx.net/models/chevrolet/blazer_ev/blazer_ev_rs_awd/chargingcurve/
Even something like a Taycan which is a charging monster that peaks at over 300kW is down to 100kW by 80%. If chargers allow for it you are best off charging to 65% and stopping when it starts falling off 300kW. By about 75% it's starting to taper pretty hard and you really don't want to be charging more unless you have to.
https://evkx.net/models/porsche/taycan/taycan/chargingcurve/
Do you happen to drive a Kia/Hyundai?
They do manage to charge remarkably well and are still pulling >150kW to a little past 80%. That's pretty solid but still ~2/3 of their peak speed and they happen to be one of the flattest charging curves of any EV I know of.
https://evkx.net/models/hyundai/ioniq_5/ioniq_5_long_range_2wd/chargingcurve/
Upvote
4
(5
/
-1)
And the other screen is placed so you don't have anywhere to hang your phone and keep it comfortably in sight, in case you want whatever infotainment Toyota put in there to fuck off and carplay/android auto is buggy that day...
Calorie? You mean furlongs per big mac right?
Last edited:
Upvote
-1
(0
/
-1)
The thing Toyota has always been good at is iterative improvement. There's been some recent wobbles in that department, but it is still in the corporate DNA, all the way from the ancient times when Japanese cars were kind of bad... and then suddenly they weren't.
Meanwhile, the likes of GM seems to change direction every few years and throw every existing design in the bin (as somehow not possible to keep developing)... and Stellantis never seems to, you know, improve - or at least their cars take one step forward, two steps back.
The Koreans and the Chinese are another matter entirely, of course.
Upvote
2
(2
/
0)
Gnafu the Great
Ars Centurion
2005 Drunk Man in a Bar called. He wants his talking point back.
Upvote
7
(7
/
0)
Ah fuck guys, I only have a few thousand more miles to go before my EV is totaled because this rando said so.
Meanwhile back in the real world, I haven't noticed any degradation at all.
Upvote
5
(5
/
0)
Gnafu the Great
Ars Centurion
It's a shame my Bolt stopped working 38,000 miles ago, and the Spark EV I sold my friend was a brick before I sold it-- OH WAIT.
Upvote
4
(4
/
0)
I must be imagining my two EVs at 80k and 101k miles. They are even Leaf's which are the poster children of battery problems for EVs.
Upvote
8
(8
/
0)
This is kind of a deal breaker for me. My wife’s Mercedes does this and I hate it. It slows down almost to a stop then suddenly cuts out. It’s like it wants me to rear end the car in front of me. What’s the point of one pedal driving except for under 4mph?
Upvote
0
(2
/
-2)
Why is it dog slow? Eight seconds to 60 mph is ridiculous for an EV. You have to try really hard to make it that slow. No thanks. PS: my RAV4 plug-in hybrid is much faster than that.
Upvote
-10
(0
/
-10)