Photo: Florin Profir/autoevolution
Toyota bZ4X is not convincing any more customers in China than it did in other markets. The Japanese carmaker is trying to boost sales of the fledgling EV by offering a hefty discount. The bZ4X is now $4,300 more affordable in China, thanks to a 15% discount applied to its original price.
Toyota was one of the legacy carmakers that was supposed to take Tesla by storm with better-quality EVs. If it ever planned to achieve this, the Japanese carmaker surely failed monumentally. Its first EV model, the bZ4X, promised to do many things right, but instead, it proved an embarrassment. Toyota had to recall it because the wheels would fall off, and it took four months to figure out how to make them stick. At some point, Toyota offered to repurchase the cars of the affected owners, which was unprecedented.
To add insult to injury, journalists in Norway discovered that the claims about the bZ4X’s range are greatly exaggerated. Toyota designed the electric crossover with a larger battery buffer that cannot be accessed. This makes the effective battery capacity to be much smaller than advertised. This might help extend its lifecycle so that Toyota can offer its 10-year warranty, but it’s far from ideal from the customers’ perspective in real life.
Considering bZ4X's problems, it’s understandable that Toyota couldn’t sell too many. It reported only 1,220 units in the U.S., while in China, it sold 3,844 units since it launched in October 2022 through January. This represents only 0.26% of China’s pure electric vehicle market, which is why Toyota felt the need to boost sales with a price cut. We have no doubt the decision was made in response to Tesla lowering prices in January. The move not only worked miracles in boosting sales, but also put pressure on rivals.
The price cuts Toyota announced are not insignificant, amounting to 15% of the original price. Toyota bZ4X used to start at 199,800 yuan in October 2022, which is equivalent to $29,100. The updated price is 169,800 yuan for the front-wheel standard-range variant, which translates into $24,800 at current exchange rates. That’s a hefty $4,300 discount for an electric vehicle that was supposed to be the pride of the Japanese automotive industry.
Toyota is not alone in its reluctance to embrace electric vehicles. Fellow Japanese carmakers Honda and Nissan are also falling behind in a market that embraced EVs more than any other in the world. More than 20% of all cars sold in China are pure electric vehicles, but only 0.35% are Japanese. By contrast, Japanese carmakers command 19% of the overall car market, which includes combustion-engine vehicles.
Toyota recently changed management and promised to overhaul its operations, but the move looks more like a reshuffling than a revolution. Toyota still contemplates doing business as usual in a world that increasingly adopts electric vehicles. Although it’s working on an EV-only vehicle architecture to replace the stop-gap solution that was the e-TNGA platform, it won’t be ready before 2026.
To add insult to injury, journalists in Norway discovered that the claims about the bZ4X’s range are greatly exaggerated. Toyota designed the electric crossover with a larger battery buffer that cannot be accessed. This makes the effective battery capacity to be much smaller than advertised. This might help extend its lifecycle so that Toyota can offer its 10-year warranty, but it’s far from ideal from the customers’ perspective in real life.
Considering bZ4X's problems, it’s understandable that Toyota couldn’t sell too many. It reported only 1,220 units in the U.S., while in China, it sold 3,844 units since it launched in October 2022 through January. This represents only 0.26% of China’s pure electric vehicle market, which is why Toyota felt the need to boost sales with a price cut. We have no doubt the decision was made in response to Tesla lowering prices in January. The move not only worked miracles in boosting sales, but also put pressure on rivals.
The price cuts Toyota announced are not insignificant, amounting to 15% of the original price. Toyota bZ4X used to start at 199,800 yuan in October 2022, which is equivalent to $29,100. The updated price is 169,800 yuan for the front-wheel standard-range variant, which translates into $24,800 at current exchange rates. That’s a hefty $4,300 discount for an electric vehicle that was supposed to be the pride of the Japanese automotive industry.
Toyota is not alone in its reluctance to embrace electric vehicles. Fellow Japanese carmakers Honda and Nissan are also falling behind in a market that embraced EVs more than any other in the world. More than 20% of all cars sold in China are pure electric vehicles, but only 0.35% are Japanese. By contrast, Japanese carmakers command 19% of the overall car market, which includes combustion-engine vehicles.
Toyota recently changed management and promised to overhaul its operations, but the move looks more like a reshuffling than a revolution. Toyota still contemplates doing business as usual in a world that increasingly adopts electric vehicles. Although it’s working on an EV-only vehicle architecture to replace the stop-gap solution that was the e-TNGA platform, it won’t be ready before 2026.
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