Tempted with a Bz4x

[JonathanP]

I'll be honest I've always been very resistant to completely EV vehicles of any brand, I've always preferred the hybrid models and for year's it's all I've had.
Combined with the long lead time for cars (still) and a VIP invite we had a look around the dealer in advance and I'll be honest the BZ4X is one of the only we were keen on due to the spacious cabin and boot in comparison to many other models in the showroom. 

Currently we have a Prius, and while I would love to stick Toyota simply aren't shipping anymore to the UK for some reason. The only other model which would give us space is the Corolla TS, but just not sure I want to change to a car which is a little boring looking to be honest, they just look like any other family estate car.

Can I have some honest opinions around range anxiety ect, I hear horror stories about people going to public EV charging points to find that they aren't even working.

I'm also aware Toyota are changing the specifications (they say any cars ordered from now will be the updated specifications, but nothing is available on the website around what the changes are. Anyone have any ideas what the changes are or maybe?) 

[flash22]

Buying new ? EV's have some heavy deprecation, one member lost 10k in 7 months on a BZ4X

the charging network is still a joke, loads of different companies and no universal payment system, also be aware that EVs will be paying road tax as of 2025

Rav4 phev ?

 

 

[ChrisON]

Jonathon,

I've had my bz4x Premier for nearly 2 months and have no regrets buying it.

1. It's a great looking car. It turns heads; not many about compared to Tesla's - they are almost ubiquitous where l live. I've had several people ask me about it, even had one chap last week who wouldn't believe it was a full EV - 'Must be a hybrid Toyota don't make a full EV' he got the message when l asked him to show me where the exhaust pipes were.

2. Comfy driving position and I'm a fairly big chap at 6' 1" - seat position takes a bit of adjustment but once sorted it's very comfortable for long trips.

3. Passengers report it as very roomy in the back.

4. Plenty of boot space, sure you could always use more but it's enough most of the time.

5. Handling and performance is great but everyones perceptions differ on that. It's more than enough for me compared to its predecessor: an Outlander PHEV which was a great car but bit agricultural.

6. Range - no complaints yet but l don't do long trips - at a guess 90% of my journeys will be <100 miles for the round trip. I've used public charging stations 4 times now (all Instavolt as it happens) and not had any issues.

7. Range anxiety? Only worrying one for me was my first trip as l'd never used a charging station before. Get ZapMap on your phone and if you have long trips planned then a bit of planning saves a lot of anxiety; make sure you have a primary and secondary charge point(s) planned. Charging obviously adds time to the journey but l'm beginning to realise that isn't a bad thing - a 20-30 minute break makes a long drive far less stressful.

8. Learning how to operate the Infotainment/Sat Nav system takes time. I abandoned the Toyota Sat Nav/Media Player almost immediately in favour of Android Auto and use Google Maps & VLC Media player. Not because the Toyota system is bad - it isn't; far from it. I just prefer Google Maps with its up to date traffic & route data.

Charging

Do you have home charging and/or solar? If you have it's all lot easier, plug it in and use the excess power to charge the EV. Might be more of an issues in winter - I've yet to experience that. All l can say is at this time of year it's costing almost nothing to 'fuel' the car.

I think the major points to consider when selecting an EV: do you have home charging, do you have solar and what kind of journeys will you be doing? If the answer is Yes, Yes, Short then in my opinion an EV is the way to go, otherwise a Hybrid is probably a better choice.

Also don't let your Toyota dealer fob you off with a 'round the block' test drive. When we were test driving the Yaris Cross for my partner l stood my ground and said we wanted an hours unaccompanied test drive or I'd walk away. I got an hours test from the dealership l finally bought my bz4x from but didn't really need it as i'd made up my mind.

Downside to the bz4x?

Not many for me. Yet to see how it does in winter in terms of range. No glove box - which is a bit weird. The many safety features l find a bit distracting - especially the driver attention and lane drift warnings but that isn't unique to Toyota.

Depreciation? Not going to lose much sleep over it.

Chris

[Cyker]

If you can home/work charge and 90% of your journeys are within half its range, then it's definitely worth considering.

Otherwise, the ownership experience isn't so fun.

[AJones]

There's something about driving along on electric which is just better or more pleasant than on an engine, the smoothness and quietness, just makes for a nicer driving experience.

For charge-point reliability, some company's charge-points are more reliable than others so it's less about reliability in general and more about the particular networks you use and picking certain networks.

As mentioned above, use Zap Map to see what the facilities are like along the routes you travel and your typical destinations, and see article below for some guidance on most reliable networks.

https://www.zap-map.com/news/best-worst-rated-ev-charging-networks-uk/

If you plan to use the non-rapid chargers, i.e. the 7kW AC post type chargers in public car parks, destinations etc, you will need to install a number of different apps to cover the various networks.

I disagree that home solar is necessary for an EV to work, most energy suppliers now offer either dedicated EV tariffs or simple Economy 7 with low cost, off-peak rates so if you can plug-in at home and charge over-night you can still benefit from lower running costs, lower even than an already efficient hybrid.

[Mister Mike]

A great summary above by ChrisON, which I agree with entirely. Though I use CarPlay, not Android. One thing: I was in the middle of Devon recently on a long trip and CarPlay navigation let me down. Severe lack of mobile signal and terrain that interfered with the phone SatNav. A couple of times, I reverted to the inbuilt car navigation and it worked fine, saved my bacon. iOS17 should help in this regard, as it will allow maps to be downloaded.

Rapid chargers are the way to go if you need to charge away from home on a long trip. I shudder at the thought of being out of juice and relying on a 7kW charger. Think of them this way: they charge at around 30 miles per hour. That's not a lot of good if you're on the move and need a lot of juice. Different story if you're charging at home overnight, of course. A rapid charger will give you full charge from 30% in around 40 minutes.

Range is as good as I need. A full charge in current weather gives me about 260 miles, with air conditioning turned on. About 50 more than I was getting in the depths of winter.

Downside: the car is very roomy and comfortable and great for long trips. But this does mean it's quite large. Compared to the CHR I had before, it can be tricky to park in tight spaces.

[ChrisON]

10 hours ago, AJones said:

I disagree that home solar is necessary for an EV to work, most energy suppliers now offer either dedicated EV tariffs or simple Economy 7 with low cost, off-peak rates so if you can plug-in at home and charge over-night you can still benefit from lower running costs, lower even than an already efficient hybrid.

Yes, l think that's true. Solar isn't essential but it makes it much cheaper to charge the EV. You can certainly run an EV without any form of home charging, it just becomes more expensive and more inconvenient; it would depend on what public charging points are in your immediate area. I'd say you need charging points within about a 5 mile radius of your home address. Some areas are better served than others.The basic 'granny charger' is ok - but it needs a good accessible mains socket. (No extension leads!).

Chris

 

[Cyker]

If you do use an extension you must unreel it completely - I got lazy once and didn't bother unreeling ours fully when mowing the lawn and halfway through it cut off: Turned out the coiled up cable had gotten so hot it had tripped a thermal fuse in the extension reel!!  

If my piddly little flymo could do that I dread to think what charging an EV could do!  

[philip42h]

20 minutes ago, Cyker said:

If my piddly little flymo could ...

A Flymo could easily be 1.8kW so draw almost 8A ... the 'granny' charger for an EV can draw only 10A so there's not that much difference (depending on just how 'piddly' your Flymo was and the rating of your extension lead).

There shouldn't be a problem using an extension lead rated at 15A, say - properly unwound, of course.

[Cyker]

More current = More heat so it'd still be more, but my point was it's essential to fully unwind an extension reel if it's going to be handling a lot of current!

 

[dab1054]

On 7/3/2023 at 10:18 AM, JonathanP said:

Can I have some honest opinions around range anxiety ect, I hear horror stories about people going to public EV charging points to find that they aren't even working.
 

I've done 7500 miles now in my bZ4X. My last car was a Prius- and I can guarantee that you'll find it a big upgrade from that car. If you adapted your driving style to get good mpg from the Prius hybrid this will set you up perfectly to get good efficiency with the bZ4X. I'm really impressed with the bZ4X - very relaxing to drive and packed with extra features even in the base model. I've driven it in the winter and the range is reduced to around 200 miles (not a big deal if you are aware of it). In summer I have been getting high efficiencies for example 3000 miles driven in May/June at an average of 4.7ml/kWh. This is for the FWD which does seem significantly more efficient that the AWD.

You really need to have home charging to make EV work well (solar also a big help). UK (outside of London/SE) is not great for rapid DC charging, but slowly improving, so you need to plan your stops carefully for a long journey- once you get the hang of it this is actually second nature and there are few problems. The recent bZ4X software update has made rapid charging much better - I'm seeing 148kW max rate regularly now and rarely need to stop for more than 30-40 minutes to get to that magic 80/90% SOC. In low temperatures (less than 5C) last winter my bZ4X rapid charging rate was way too slow- as low as 25kW. I'm hoping that this has been improved with the new software- will have to wait on this until the coming winter.

If I was buying now, I would take advantage of the few bZ4X owners who have traded in their low mileages bZ4X - you could probably pick one up at a good discount.

I'd have no hesitation in recommending the bZ4X.

[Derek.w]

2 hours ago, Cyker said:

More current = More heat so it'd still be more, but my point was it's essential to fully unwind an extension reel if it's going to be handling a lot of current!

 

You unwind coils of wire to cut down on eddy currents or you can do a figure of 8 so it cancels out to some extent.

The heat generated is not good for the life af the cable or your pocket as wasted heat is wasted £.

[Derek.w]

Note not all extension leads are rated at 15 Amps some are 10 amp or even just 5 Amps.

Some of the dedicated fast chargers require a 30 Amp dedicated supply to the unit.

[JonathanP]

Thank you for all the replies guys. I'll see what the dealer comes up with on Friday 

Does anyone have any experience of Juice boosters? Just something that popped up on my Facebook feed (been bombarded with EV charging adverts) https://juice.world/en/product/juice-booster-2/

Not sure I understand it correctly.

[philip42h]

16 hours ago, JonathanP said:

Not sure I understand it correctly.

I'm not sure I do either but it seems to be just a cable with adaptors for different AC mains inputs (and added snake oil!) ... 😉

[swoop5511]

17 hours ago, JonathanP said:

Thank you for all the replies guys. I'll see what the dealer comes up with on Friday 

Does anyone have any experience of Juice boosters? Just something that popped up on my Facebook feed (been bombarded with EV charging adverts) https://juice.world/en/product/juice-booster-2/

Not sure I understand it correctly.

Effectively acts as a mobile wallbox while on the road - or use as your home charger that you can take with. Allows you to use (with right connector) the orange / red high power plug. Really only worthwhile if you're travelling a lot to rural areas where you may also face dodgy wiring as the juice booster and equivalents also can shut down when getting to hot. Which the charging cable that comes with the car does not. 

[JonathanP]

1 minute ago, swoop5511 said:

Effectively acts as a mobile wallbox while on the road - or use as your home charger that you can take with. Allows you to use (with right connector) the orange / red high power plug. Really only worthwhile if you're travelling a lot to rural areas where you may also face dodgy wiring as the juice booster and equivalents also can shut down when getting to hot. Which the charging cable that comes with the car does not. 

Thanks 🙂

[JonathanP]

So the figures from the dealer is what I was expecting, taking advantage of a test drive (without the dealer) tomorrow. All being well I'll probably be ordering on Sunday 

No doubt I'll be back for advice on EV chargers etc

[JonathanP]

Order placed today. All being well it should be delivered February, though the dealer said I may as wait until 1st march for the new reg plate.

[ChrisON]

15 hours ago, JonathanP said:

Order placed today. All being well it should be delivered February, though the dealer said I may as wait until 1st march for the new reg plate.

Great news. Which version have you ordered?

Chris

 

[JonathanP]

We opted for the Vision in dark blue and skyroof. The kids are going to love being able to look out at the sky. As the dealer had the light gray seats, we also opted for that as it really makes the inside a lot brighter.

Still waiting for Toyota to update the specs on the website (but I doubt anything will be downgraded)

Edited July 10, 2023 by JonathanP
Forgot to add extra information

[adidev]

I'm gonna use this topic as it suits my question: we are very tempted with bz4x. We often do round trips from West Bromwich to Borth in summer. Can AWD or FWD do that on single charge as there is practically no destination chargers (I think there is one or two slow charge, but not sure if working at all)?

[egg]

2 hours ago, adidev said:

I'm gonna use this topic as it suits my question: we are very tempted with bz4x. We often do round trips from West Bromwich to Borth in summer. Can AWD or FWD do that on single charge as there is practically no destination chargers (I think there is one or two slow charge, but not sure if working at all)?

Looking at that info, it seems a 230 mile round trip. The Fwd with the smaller 18 inch wheels should be able to manage that in summer

[ernieb]

There is likely to be little safety margin even in summer I'd have thought for a new EV owner.

[philip42h]

9 hours ago, adidev said:

I'm gonna use this topic as it suits my question: we are very tempted with bz4x. We often do round trips from West Bromwich to Borth in summer. Can AWD or FWD do that on single charge as there is practically no destination chargers (I think there is one or two slow charge, but not sure if working at all)?

The round trip might be a bit touch and go. While there aren't many charging options along the route in Wales, you won't (shouldn't) be travelling that fast either so range will be somewhat extended.

While there aren't many options in Borth, there is a Tesla supercharger in Aberystwyth so you could opt to spend 20 minutes there for peace of mind ...

And the situation is improving - even in Wales  ... 😉