Autocar review June 2022

[FROSTYBALLS]

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/toyota/bz4x

[Malop]

I might want to argue the word review with the journalist but it’s good to see something coming out of the UK press

[Roy124]

39 minutes ago, Malop said:

I might want to argue the word review with the journalist but it’s good to see something coming out of the UK press

Definitely biege, the report that is.  Did they actually properly drive the car. 

[Yugguy1970]

What they really need is the B4ZX GR.  With a 201bhp motor at EACH end.   😁

 

And I will NEVER understand the yoke.  Whatever the engine you still need to steer the damn thing,  

[philip42h]

That was a pretty good review.

Toyota have tried to produce an EV for the masses - for mass production at least, and to sell at a more sensible price point. It doesn't aim to be the fastest thing on the planet, but to provide decent performance over a decent range. So words like 'beige' and 'fine' are just fine - that's exactly what it is supposed to be.

And I what one with the yoke. We've grown accustomed to peering at our instruments through the steering wheel - which is just daft if you think about it. And then, to get folks eyes back up onto the road, expensive cars add a head-up display. The bZ4X puts the instruments in the correct place so that the driver can see both the instruments and the road at the same time. The yoke makes this work just fine - I want one with a yoke ... 😉

[Cyker]

I've always said the dash placement in cars is completely illogical - The Mk1 and Mk2 Yaris had the dash in the right place - A collimated display (So you didn't have to keep refocussing your eyes between near and far) in the middle of the dash instead of behind the wheel, aimed at the driver.

The speedo was a nice big digital display so you could see it out the corner of your eye, and any warnings would catch your eye much easier, and it was easy to glance at when checking the rear view mirror.

The dash in the Mk4 is really hard to see by comparison - It's too low and behind the wheel so you can't see it with peripheral vision. Annoyingly, a lot of warnings are not duplicated onto the HUD, so e.g. it'll flash the traction control warning when my front wheels skid but I can't see it as it's too far out of my line of sight, so is functionally useless! (Nobody is going to be looking down when their wheels are skidding!)

I'm so glad I got it with a HUD, but it's so stupid that Toyota are removing that option...  

50 minutes ago, Yugguy1970 said:

What they really need is the B4ZX GR.  With a 201bhp motor at EACH end.   😁

 

And I will NEVER understand the yoke.  Whatever the engine you still need to steer the damn thing,  

I still live in the vague hope that the Yaris Hybrid-R Concept will become a real car...  

And yeah, the yoke belongs on Planes, KITT and F1 cars, not normal consumer cars...

This is an example of literally fixing something that isn't broken with something functionally worse...

 

[Yugguy1970]

Modern cars have very little feel as it is, a yoke that only needs a short movement from lock to lock is really bad idea I think, too easy to oversteer at speed.

Cyker yes, we had a Yaris with the floating dash, I really liked that you didn't have to refocus.

[Roy124]

29 minutes ago, Yugguy1970 said:

Modern cars have very little feel as it is, a yoke that only needs a short movement from lock to lock is really bad idea I think, too easy to oversteer at speed.

There will probably be control laws and artificial feel such as you have in aircraft with the yoke stiffening up or becoming less sensitive at speed. 

They do it with the accelerator pedal and self-centering steering. SAAB experimented with a side stick controller. I don't know whether it used twist or rock 

[TonyHSD]

I like the car outside and partly inside but two things really bothers me, the dashboard (instrument cluster position) and the steering wheel (yoke) either of which are placed very wrongly. The equivalent cars from Lexus has much better design and functionality with or without yoke. The id series from Vw has better design in this particular area to fail with central info screen and hvac controls . These days almost impossible to find a car that looks good, it’s practical and simple. 

[Cyker]

8 hours ago, Yugguy1970 said:

Modern cars have very little feel as it is, a yoke that only needs a short movement from lock to lock is really bad idea I think, too easy to oversteer at speed.

It could be even worse - I remember on Tomorrow's World (Anyone remember that???) they demo'd a car that used a joystick for steering, and one thing it would do is change how much the wheels steered depending on speed, so e.g. at high speed full deflection would turn the wheels less than at low speed.

I remember thinking that would be a terrible idea - I already find the brake-by-wire in my Mk4 annoying because the pedal only vaguely maps to the braking force I get, and changes in a slightly unpredictable way as it blends in the friction brakes, but having that unpredictability in the steering as well just seems like it'd increase the workload of the driver as they have to keep compensating for the car moving the goal posts!

[Malop]

What car review just gone live with EU model. Interesting to learn the Premier edition comes with 11KW on board AC Charger compared to the 6KW in other models. 
 

 

[Devon Aygo]

On 6/9/2022 at 3:46 PM, Yugguy1970 said:

What they really need is the B4ZX GR.  With a 201bhp motor at EACH end.   😁

 

And I will NEVER understand the yoke.  Whatever the engine you still need to steer the damn thing,  

BZ4X GR, That would compete too closely with the new Lexus RZ450e which is a posher 230kw/308 bhp version of the BZ4x

With a Yoke and no physical steering shaft Toyota can vary the steering ratio and ensure that you never have to go hand over hand allowing you to go lock to lock without removing your hands from the yoke

[Cyker]

But then you either loose precision at low speeds or have to dynamically vary the steering ratio so there's no way the driver will know how much the wheels will turn in proportion to how much the yoke is turned. This is not good.

It's just a solution looking for a problem, and I bet it's all considerably more expensive and failure-prone than a normal steering system.

I'm all for trying new things, but I just cannot see any advantage of this - I can already go lock-to-lock without taking my hands off the steering wheel (because I was taught to steer properly  ) - but can see so many disadvantages and problems (How do you steer when the power is dead, e.g. for recovery? EPAS already gives highly reduced feedback - What will the feedback from this be like? etc.)

TBH this is the sort of mad experiment I'd expect from the french, not from Toyota...

 

[forkingabout]

Be interested to know what happens in the event of the electric fly by wire steering system failing - what safety back ups have been built in?

I know what happens on BT / Toyota forklifts - maximum regen braking to bring vehicle to a stop, application of parking brake & traction locked out. 

[Roy124]

I once had a near accident and wonder how a by wire yoke would have managed. 

Entirely my fault in my youth, I was driving fast on a narrow single track road when I hit a raised culvert.  As the car took off I saw the road made an immediate right angle turn. 

I applied hard right and when the car landed on its sump guard I think the wheels were full right lock.  The car shot round the bend and apart from a slight bend underneath there was no damage. 

With the weight off the wheels, would a yoke be free to move? 

[yossarian247]

On 6/9/2022 at 3:44 PM, Roy124 said:

Definitely biege, the report that is.  Did they actually properly drive the car. 

They mentioned the scratchiness of the interior plastics though, that's the one thing that motoring journalists really care about. You could give them a milk float to test drive and as long as it had a German Badge and a really soft facia they'd be happy 🙂

[Cyker]

I never understood the obsession with that - What even is a scratchy plastic? Who are these people that goes around groping up their car all the time that this matters more than e.g. an engine that doesn't throw a rod out the side occasionally?

As long as the bits I actually use, e.g. the wheel, shifter, switches etc. are comfortable to use, that's all that really matters surely?

On a fancy expensive car sure, but on a normal consumer car, the priorities just seem in the wrong place for those people...

 

[Roger_N]

3 hours ago, yossarian247 said:

They mentioned the scratchiness of the interior plastics though, that's the one thing that motoring journalists really care about. You could give them a milk float to test drive and as long as it had a German badge and a really soft facia they'd be happy 🙂

Add to that the size of the bottle you can fit in the door pockets.

[yossarian247]

I think motoring journalists often just regurgitate the brochures and press releases handed to them by manufacturers, and don't really understand the technical issues very well. They resort to mentioning nonsense like dash plastics because they don't know what else to talk about. I recently saw a review of a Hyundai hybrid where the journalist was waffling about the gearbox being different to 'the clunky belt-driven transmissions in Toyota hybrids'.  What?! The only belts in a Toyota hybrid are those on the seats, or perhaps holding the driver's trousers up.

[Cyker]

Yeah, so many 'professional' reviews refer to belt-driven CVTs in Toyota hybrids you just gotta laugh   You'd think by now they'd have learned how the system works in passing given how old it is but nope, same old GIGO they've been spouting since the Mk2 Prius...

It's almost become a 'canary' for me, to help tell the good reviewers from the morons...

[Malop]

Another review gone live this week. 
 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/toyota/bz4x/357429/new-toyota-bz4x-2022-review?fbclid=IwAR2NLesbWXhUTJackzW_qYEwSXDYmDQ2e_z9po-UxHqfwUB_FMdMsMEGKY8

 

[Yugguy1970]

The yoke was a good idea in 1905 when cars went 30mph max.

It's not now.

[duncerduncs]

I'd keep an open mind on the yoke set up, Toyota have been working on it for 12 years (to keep post F1 engineers busy!).

I'm more interested in the comments section, the die hard EV idiots really don't like the fact that the car is getting good reviews!!

[TonyHSD]

Here it is what Mat says