BZ4X stranded me on highway after about 154 miles

[Pitkat]

So bought a new Limited AWD and picked up from dealer,🤗 set destination to 150KW electrify America charger 180 miles away. Range on display 306 miles. 🤪Ha, not my first BEV so not a chance I would believe that. Then after some driving at 75mph 50.F weather with heating on range dropped to 100 miles with 100 miles to go. OK,🤔 so turned off all heating and range jumped to 128 miles with 100 miles to go. No problem. Then range dropped to 80 with 90miles to go, speed to 70mph, still no Heating, with my winter coat on and occasional short bursts of window cracking to defog. Then range is now 50 miles with 60 miles to go, 40 with 58 miles to go. 30 with 56 miles to go, 20 with 52 miles to go, 10 with 48miles to go, 0 with 46miles to go, and dead with 40 miles to go. (More or less was staring at the Range for the last 50 miles) Not cool Toyota, not cool at all. 2 hrs freezing on the side of the road and an expensive 45 min tow truck ride to the charger, with a two hour wait to get to 88% SOC, left me a little sour.😒. I have owned and still own other BEVs, (Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, Tesla Model S, Jaguar iPace, Audi eTron, VW ID4, Ford Lightning) so I know range is bad in cold weather but the precipitous drop of 50 miles in the last 20 or so miles covered left me in a state where I will not trust this car for any trip more than 120 miles. Future buyers be warned. I am not making it up. Needless to say, I am not sure I want to keep this car. Other than that, this car isn't too bad, oh unless of course you need to see the instrument cluster above the steering wheel you will need to rise up and lean forward to see the bottom information, because the steering wheel doesn't go up or down far enough out of the way. Don't analyze this mathematically and ridicule me for the math not adding up. This is a short, as accurate as possible description of my experience. Toyota has upstaged every other car maker and wins the gold for the GOM (Guess O Meter) championship title with a new world record.🤬

[TonyHSD]

+1 for the stupid dashboard design. There are few more horrible and ultra uncomfortable decisions made like for example- rear seat bench too low and anyone seating on would feel it in their knees, no glove box ( dashboard storage). 
For the Battery performance no comment from my side. Let see what other owners will share as experience. 

[Roy124]

How to say this?  Isn't cruising at 70 mph in a new unknown car a little daring? 

Looking at WLTP assessment the average speed is 29 mph at 73F. Whereas in the US For EVs, the EPA commonly uses a testing procedure known as the multi-cycle test, which requires full charging of the Battery, followed by parking the vehicle overnight. The next day, the EPA puts the EV on a dynamometer and subjects it to successive city, highway, and steady-state driving cycles until the vehicle is entirely out of charge. Following another complete Battery recharging session, the EPA derives an estimate for the driving range.

It appears this EPA test does not allow for air resistance. 

[bZ4X]

5 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

+1 for the stupid dashboard design. There are few more horrible and ultra uncomfortable decisions made like for example- rear seat bench too low and anyone seating on would feel it in their knees, no glove box ( dashboard storage). 
For the battery performance no comment from my side. Let see what other owners will share as experience. 

This is a common problem for all Electric Vehicles. Because of the extra Battery pack, they had to design the seats lower in their EV cars to provide the same headroom.

[bZ4X]

6 hours ago, Pitkat said:

So bought a new Limited AWD and picked up from dealer,🤗 set destination to 150KW electrify America charger 180 miles away. Range on display 306 miles. 🤪Ha, not my first BEV so not a chance I would believe that. Then after some driving at 75mph 50.F weather with heating on range dropped to 100 miles with 100 miles to go. OK,🤔 so turned off all heating and range jumped to 128 miles with 100 miles to go. No problem. Then range dropped to 80 with 90miles to go, speed to 70mph, still no Heating, with my winter coat on and occasional short bursts of window cracking to defog. Then range is now 50 miles with 60 miles to go, 40 with 58 miles to go. 30 with 56 miles to go, 20 with 52 miles to go, 10 with 48miles to go, 0 with 46miles to go, and dead with 40 miles to go. (More or less was staring at the Range for the last 50 miles) Not cool Toyota, not cool at all. 2 hrs freezing on the side of the road and an expensive 45 min tow truck ride to the charger, with a two hour wait to get to 88% SOC, left me a little sour.😒. I have owned and still own other BEVs, (Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, Tesla Model S, Jaguar iPace, Audi eTron, VW ID4, Ford Lightning) so I know range is bad in cold weather but the precipitous drop of 50 miles in the last 20 or so miles covered left me in a state where I will not trust this car for any trip more than 120 miles. Future buyers be warned. I am not making it up. Needless to say, I am not sure I want to keep this car. Other than that, this car isn't too bad, oh unless of course you need to see the instrument cluster above the steering wheel you will need to rise up and lean forward to see the bottom information, because the steering wheel doesn't go up or down far enough out of the way. Don't analyze this mathematically and ridicule me for the math not adding up. This is a short, as accurate as possible description of my experience. Toyota has upstaged every other car maker and wins the gold for the GOM (Guess O Meter) championship title with a new world record.🤬

We know Toyota has acknowledged the problem and is working on it.  We're all looking forward to the first two major updates.  Quote from someone in contact with Toyota: "Toyota bZ4X will release an update in May to fix some range related issues".

[philip42h]

6 hours ago, Pitkat said:

So bought a new Limited AWD and picked up from dealer,🤗 set destination to 150KW electrify America charger 180 miles away. Range on display 306 miles. 🤪Ha, not my first BEV so not a chance I would believe that. Then after some driving at 75mph 50.F weather with heating on range dropped to 100 miles with 100 miles to go ...

As per the subject line, you achieved 154 miles at highway speeds in cold weather. According to EVDB the expected range under those conditions is 145 miles - so you got 9 miles further than we would have expected. I note that "All-wheel drive models for the North American market have a 72.8 kWh Battery built by CATL" rather than the 71.4 kWh pack we have in Europe but that shouldn't have made a huge difference.

So, yes, the range of the bZ4X is a little disappointing, but is by now quite well understood and your car performed pretty much as expected.

80 miles into your journey it became abundantly clear that you weren't going to make your destination without recharging - you'd just used 200 miles of guesstimated range to cover 80 miles so your prospects were very poor. Why did you not simply schedule an earlier stop to recharge and save yourself the ensuing agro?

Is not the scarcity of charge points the real issue?

[lightboxcar]

7 hours ago, Pitkat said:

Then range is now 50 miles with 60 miles to go, 40 with 58 miles to go. 30 with 56 miles to go, 20 with 52 miles to go, 10 with 48miles to go, 0 with 46miles to go, and dead with 40 miles to go

Perhaps Pitkat's point is the really misleading figures shown on the dash, i.e. dead with 46 miles to go.  e.g. at 50 miles range left he is only ten miles off the target destination, but then still 46 miles of target with 0 miles range.

Have to say we have noticed this too.  The figures on the dash just don't add up.

We're wondering of the car "learns" over time, and gets more accurate as it understands the driver's style and journey profiles.  Certainly for us, that would make sense as the figures we are seeing are starting to make more sense.  We have only done about 1,270 miles so far in total.

41 minutes ago, philip42h said:

you achieved 154 miles at highway speeds in cold weather.

As Philip says, what was achieved is actually not too bad, and is very close to what we were seeing during the recent sub-zero cold snap.

Pitkat does not say what range he got / is getting from the other EV's, under similar conditions:

7 hours ago, Pitkat said:

I have owned and still own other BEVs

Have to say though, the longer we use this car, the more likely it is we will keep it.  There is just too many benefits/upsides to ignore.  If the slated May software update increases range , then all the better.

[bZ4X]

4 hours ago, lightboxcar said:

Perhaps Pitkat's point is the really misleading figures shown on the dash, i.e. dead with 46 miles to go.  e.g. at 50 miles range left he is only ten miles off the target destination, but then still 46 miles of target with 0 miles range.

Have to say we have noticed this too.  The figures on the dash just don't add up.

We're wondering of the car "learns" over time, and gets more accurate as it understands the driver's style and journey profiles.  Certainly for us, that would make sense as the figures we are seeing are starting to make more sense.  We have only done about 1,270 miles so far in total.

As Philip says, what was achieved is actually not too bad, and is very close to what we were seeing during the recent sub-zero cold snap.

Pitkat does not say what range he got / is getting from the other EV's, under similar conditions:

Have to say though, the longer we use this car, the more likely it is we will keep it.  There is just too many benefits/upsides to ignore.  If the slated May software update increases range , then all the better.

To judge the car, we must wait the first two three major updates. 

My friend has a Ford Mach-e.  It is one of the first to deliver in the UK.  After 2 years of software updates, the number of his complaints have decreased. Now he is much more satisfied with the car.

P. S. We compared cars. He loved the sound system (JBL versus B&O) , sound insulation and driving comfort of the bZ4X!

By the way, the AWD trim comes with the double wishbone suspension system! 

[dab1054]

4 hours ago, lightboxcar said:

Have to say we have noticed this too.  The figures on the dash just don't add up.

We're wondering of the car "learns" over time, and gets more accurate as it understands the driver's style and journey profiles.  Certainly for us, that would make sense as the figures we are seeing are starting to make more sense.  We have only done about 1,270 miles so far in total.

The bZ4X range 'guessometer' is just not very accurate, certainly not in winter, maybe better in summer. There is a warning with about 30/40 miles of range remaining- really the OP should have stopped to charge at this stage.  The bZ4X is not unique it its overestimation of range since this problem seems to occur with most EVs.

And yes, we all hope for some tweaks and improvements with the promised upgrades. 

[ernieb]

If Toyota released more range by reducing the Battery capacity when the SOC indicator shows zero then the potential for folks running out of power is going to get worse not better. The SOC is never going to be accurate as so many things can influence the actual delivered range, speed, environmental, topography, how it’s being driven etc.

Throughout my long years of driving I’m always looking to keep the fuel gauge above 1/4 tank and I could not see me driving a BEV down to the zero.

[Pitkat]

Follow up: driving this car is not bad at all, it's actually kind of nice. I think the instrument cluster was designed for a Yoke steering wheel. 154 isn't bad I suppose but that was with 48 to 52.F weather, do I want to know what it will be in single digit weather? At 50 mile predicted range with 60 miles to go, my choice was to take the next exit 14 miles away turn around and drive back 30 miles for the closest charger which was a 50KW charger. Now we know that wouldn't have worked either. All my other BEVs adjust the Range down and up based on some algorithm they use, I was wishfully thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could make it. I also wanted to be closer to an actual exit with a hotel in case I couldn't get a tow and had to abandon the car and find a hotel to stay in for the night. And lastly I have never experienced a precipitous drop with the last 50 miles or range I fully expected the differential between miles to drive and range estimate to stay around 10 miles or so. @philip42h Thank you for the EVDB did not know that.

[BZ4X-Range-Searcher]

I took delivery of my BZ4X Motion AWD in January and I have been very happy with many aspects of driving the car, but I really feel that I have been lied to by Toyota about the range.  After a full night on charge, the range is stated at 209 miles (with nothing on in the car) or about 160 if I have to put on the AC to clear the window (a very regular problem with this car).  The “Real Life” range is probably about 160, even with limited AC use, which is a good 100 miles less than the salesman promised me.   This is not just a cold weather problem, it is even worse then.

Any ideas what the software update might achieve?  I do drive mainly on dual carriageways and rural roads, not much in town, but I am not a boy racer.  Just mightily hacked off at the serious miss-selling of this car.

[Big_D]

Did you contact Toyota Roadside assistance and ask them to bring you a container of electricity?

Sorry, couldn't resist. 

[OldSteve]

On 3/6/2023 at 9:13 AM, bZ4X said:

This is a common problem for all Electric Vehicles. Because of the extra battery pack, they had to design the seats lower in their EV cars to provide the same headroom.

If anything the seat is higher than in the EV6, which was my main alternative.

[Rajavina]

On 3/24/2023 at 9:26 PM, BZ4X-Range-Searcher said:

I took delivery of my BZ4X Motion AWD in January and I have been very happy with many aspects of driving the car, but I really feel that I have been lied to by Toyota about the range.  After a full night on charge, the range is stated at 209 miles (with nothing on in the car) or about 160 if I have to put on the AC to clear the window (a very regular problem with this car).  The “Real Life” range is probably about 160, even with limited AC use, which is a good 100 miles less than the salesman promised me.   This is not just a cold weather problem, it is even worse then.

Any ideas what the software update might achieve?  I do drive mainly on dual carriageways and rural roads, not much in town, but I am not a boy racer.  Just mightily hacked off at the serious miss-selling of this car.

Very true. Toyota lied about mileage and rate of charging. IMHO these problems cannot be solved by software updates. At the most they can free 5% Battery for use. Toyota's drive train might not be as good as Tesla and energy consumption will continue to be high. So for those reasons I sold mine after 4 months.

[dab1054]

52 minutes ago, Rajavina said:

 Toyota lied about mileage and rate of charging.

No, Toyota did not lie. They simply quoted the standard WLTP test data as do all other EV manufacturers.   

[BZ4X-Range-Searcher]

58 minutes ago, dab1054 said:

No, Toyota did not lie. They simply quoted the standard WLTP test data as do all other EV manufacturers.   

There is an old adage in business that you may not remember what people did or said, but you do remember how they made you feel.  I feel strongly that I was lied to by Toyota and their sales staff about the real range of the BZ4X. I was aware of the WLTP range finding and the "real-life" range of many EVs and the BZ4X bears absolutely no resemblance to any of the other models that I now wish I had chosen instead.

[OldSteve]

2 hours ago, BZ4X-Range-Searcher said:

There is an old adage in business that you may not remember what people did or said, but you do remember how they made you feel.  I feel strongly that I was lied to by Toyota and their sales staff about the real range of the BZ4X. I was aware of the WLTP range finding and the "real-life" range of many EVs and the BZ4X bears absolutely no resemblance to any of the other models that I now wish I had chosen instead.

Yes, I was given the impression that although all EV's fall short of WLTP in real life, the BZ4X was going to be closer to achieving published numbers than the competition. I am becoming concerned that this is no the case and if it comes to pass that my BZ4X is much further away than other EVs I will not be happy with Toyota.

[ernieb]

I think it's historically true that Toyota generally give pretty accurate estimates of fuel consumption.  That's true for me with the RAV4 PHEV as I can honestly say that over the year I typically get the quoted 46miles EV range and pretty much the HEV mode figures when it switches over. The EV range does vary considerable summer to winter and driving style.  Maybe things will improve after the ECU update in May and of course the warmer weather will have a significant impact.

[OldSteve]

On 3/28/2023 at 1:23 PM, Rajavina said:

Very true. Toyota lied about mileage and rate of charging. IMHO these problems cannot be solved by software updates. At the most they can free 5% battery for use. Toyota's drive train might not be as good as Tesla and energy consumption will continue to be high. So for those reasons I sold mine after 4 months.

Picked up my BZ4X AWD this morning and drove 12 miles home. I don't know how much charge I started with but my range is now 224/173. I'm surprised air con makes that much difference.

[Roy124]

On 3/28/2023 at 2:17 PM, dab1054 said:

No, Toyota did not lie. They simply quoted the standard WLTP test data as do all other EV manufacturers.   

This adherence to regulator calculations is suppose to give a level comparison between different products by using a standard set of figures.  Any suggestion by the salesman that the results might be different breaches regulators rules and opens them up to malpractice suites.

First time I came across this was an FSAVC.  The figures were quoted and it was quite obvious one assumption was wrong.  They refused to run the calcs with my figures.

Next has just happened with solar panels.  Same rules.  This time I remodelled their calcs into my own spreadsheet.  I then found that a different firm used a different year base so the figures were not comparable.

With the WLTP do you have enough information to remodel the figures?  If you know different car drag factors that might give one clue.  If your driving profile is a known variation from standard you might make a more accurate assessment.

[dab1054]

1 hour ago, Roy124 said:

With the WLTP do you have enough information to remodel the figures?  If you know different car drag factors that might give one clue.  If your driving profile is a known variation from standard you might make a more accurate assessment.

EV Database shows two WLTP ratings for some cars (see bZ4X FWD below). These are TEL (Test Energy Low)  and the (Test Energy High). It is the WLTP TEL that seems to be available for all cars and is the one the manufactures use for adverts etc. Though you could make an argument that the the is a better guide?

Edit: the Test Energy High autocorrecting to the! Can't stop it...

EV Database bZ4X FWD

WLTP Ratings (TEL)

Range	321 mi
Rated Consumption	232 Wh/mi
Vehicle Consumption	200 Wh/mi

WLTP Ratings (the)

Range	275 mi
Rated Consumption	269 Wh/mi
Vehicle Consumption	233 Wh/mi

 

TEL = Test Energy Low | the = Test Energy High
Rated = official figures as published by manufacturer. Rated consumption and fuel equivalency figures include charging losses.
Vehicle = calculated Battery energy consumption used by the vehicle for propulsion and on-board systems.