Toyota has announced the starting price for the bZ4X in XLT trim with a single front-mounted motor in the US will be $42,000. The Limited all-wheel drive dual motor version starts at $48,780. All versions of the bZ4X have a “Delivery, Processing and Handling” fee of $1,215. Unlike the last battery-electric SUV from Toyota, the RAV4 EV, the bZ4X will be available at Toyota dealers nationwide, but good luck finding one. Toyota’s official price announcement notes that availability will be “extremely limited,” according to The Verge. Supply chain issues are bedeviling the Japanese company just as they are every other automaker in the world.
Toyota says the base model bZ4X has an estimated EPA range of 252 miles — about the same mileage as the $33,500 Chevy Bolt EUV and 60 miles less than the $40,900 Kia EV6. In other words. if miles of range per dollar spent is an important criterion to you, the bZ4X may not be on your short list of possible vehicles.
When the car was first revealed last October, it was shown with a yoke-style steering wheel, but no such frivolity appears anywhere in the current press announcement. That’s a blessed relief, but there is still no answer to the question of what Toyota was thinking when it came up with a thoroughly unpronounceable name for this car. Is it “beezt4x” or “buhzee4x”? In the UK, will it be the “buhzedforks”? Why saddle a perfectly good car with a name like that? It’s like naming your son Sue. In any event, here’s a YouTube videa from Kelly Blue Book about what the car is like to drive.
About The Federal Tax Credit
Toyota hasn’t sold many battery-electric cars in the US, but it has sold enough hybrids and plug-in hybrids that it may exhaust its federal tax credit entitlements by this summer. Savvy shoppers may elect to simply buy a Subaru Solterra, which is essentially a bZ4X with a different badge on the liftgate. Subaru has about 190,500 federal tax credits remaining, which should make Subaru dealers quite happy but Toyota dealers quite sad.
Prices for the Solterra have not yet been announced, but Car and Driver speculates they will be similar to the bZ4X. The difference is that while the Solterra comes standard with dual motors, the Toyota does not. And another plus for the Subaru is that you won’t get spittle all over other people when you try to pronounce the name of your fancy new electric car. Some things you just can’t put a price on.
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
