For Toyota, the world's number one seller, what does the pure electric car bZ4X mean?

Written by | Fiesta ST

Edit | Ya Lan

The Toyota bZ4X, which has been concerned by the industry for a long time, is finally coming.

A few days ago, the bZ4X, the first member of Toyota's bZ pure electric exclusive series, officially met with Chinese consumers in the form of online release.

At this time, a full 34 months have passed since Toyota held a conference in Tokyo to show off the concept version of its next-generation electric vehicle and announced that it will accelerate its electrification strategy – a period of time in which a lot has happened in the global automotive industry. Toyota surpassed Volkswagen and re-emerged as the world's number one automotive group; the "new forces" led by Tesla swept the global auto market, including China; and the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic has profoundly changed the pattern of the automotive industry.

Innovation and change are already common issues faced by all car companies. Perhaps because of this, the bZ4X unveiled at this time, the new pure electric SUV with toyota logos, also has a strong sense of the future.

Everyone blows "black technology", but bZ4X says "I'm not targeting anybody"

The most talked about is the steering wheel. On the Lexus RZ, released earlier, we've seen Toyota take radical innovations in the steering wheel, a car part that has barely changed much in a century. The bZ4X is also equipped with an F1-like rectangular steering wheel on high-end models and can be equipped with the world's first metric-produced steering-by-wire.

This steering wheel is not only more sporty in appearance, but steer-by-wire can be described as a new technology across the era - in the steering system of traditional cars, the steering wheel is physically connected to the steering system through the steering column. Toyota is promoting the steer-by-wire technology, which directly cancels the steering column, disconnects the physical connection between the steering wheel and the wheel, and the steering wheel rotation only produces an electronic signal, and the electronic signal is transmitted through the line, directly controlling the front wheel to make an angle change to achieve vehicle steering.

Toyota refers to this steering wheel and control-by-wire technology as the OMG (One Motion Grip) driving control kit. In this system, the steering wheel of the vehicle will no longer have openness and virtual position, and the angle of rotation of the steering wheel will no longer be "two turns and three turns", but will be set to plus or minus 150 °. Similar to racing cars, drivers no longer need to change hands to complete the "cross direction", only need to turn a small angle, can complete the right angle turn and even turn around.

The bZ4X also confirmed that it will be equipped with a solar charging panel on the roof. This is also a very innovative and bold configuration, the early Toyota Prius and Skoda Haorui also equipped with similar solar version, but the electricity generated is mainly used as parking ventilation in the car. At present, the Toyota bZ4X solar panel can be directly used for charging power battery packs. According to data released by Toyota, under certain conditions, the electricity generated by this solar charging panel in one year is equivalent to about 1750km for vehicles to travel. If you calculate the commuting mileage of about 900km per month, you can run for almost 2 months.

In the era of fuel vehicles, the large exhaust volume of multiple cylinders used to be the standard for judging whether the car was "advanced". Today, fuel vehicles are the yellow flower of tomorrow, and displacement has long been the foundation of automobile manufacturing. For electric vehicles, is the mileage the standard for judging cars in the future?

For Toyota, the answer may not be so. The term "black technology" has been almost used badly in recent years, and the technology such as wire control steering equipped with GAC Toyota bZ4X can be said to be the innovation that takes the car into the next generation, and it is the real future technology.

At the same time, the bZ4X also has Toyota's consistent level in terms of mechanical level, and at the same time, in terms of endurance, it is not inferior to the competitors of "new forces".

bZ4X was born in the EXCLUSIVE BEV platform based on the e-TNGA architecture, similar to the TNGA architecture, it has the characteristics of low center of gravity and high rigidity body, and the carefully polished driving texture can be described as subverting the inherent cognition of "electric vehicle lack of driving pleasure". On the basis of the e-TNGA architecture, the bZ4X also performs remarkablely in terms of power and endurance, the front-drive version is equipped with a single motor, and the maximum horsepower of the burst is 204Ps; the four-wheel drive version is equipped with dual motors, the maximum horsepower is increased to 218Ps, and the maximum comprehensive endurance can reach 615km.

It is worth mentioning that the Toyota bZ4X also adopts the X-MODE four-wheel drive system jointly developed with Subaru, which can exert more extreme torque and powertrain under the newly developed intelligent creep system, which is enough to meet most urban environments and even carry out a certain degree of off-roading.

How determined is Toyota's pure electric transformation? Just look at the bZ4X

As the first model of Toyota's bZ series, the bZ4X not only has to start the first shot, but also undertakes to pass on Toyota's new car concept. According to the plan, Toyota plans to launch 15 pure electric models worldwide in 2025, of which the bZ series plans to launch 7 models - in the face of Toyota's accelerated attack, many media exclaimed that Toyota suddenly has electric ambitions; or lamented that in the face of the boom in electric vehicles, Toyota finally "compromised".

Indeed, Toyota's strategic shift in 2019 was indeed decisive.

At the end of 2017, Toyota's electrification strategy was still based on hybrid and hydrogen fuel cells. Toyota's plan at the time was: "By 2025, it will provide an electric version for each model of its Toyota and Lexus brands, and plans to sell about 5.5 million electric vehicles by 2030, of which 4.5 million will be hybrid and rechargeable hybrids, and 1 million will be pure electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles."

In 2019, the strategy that laid the foundation for today's bZ series, Toyota changed its previous relatively cautious attitude and announced that it aims to sell 1 million pure electric vehicles by 2025. At the end of last year, it was once again announced that it is expected to launch 30 pure electric models by 2030, with an annual global sales volume of 3.5 million vehicles; and the Lexus brand will directly transform into a pure electric brand, and reach the global sales target of 1 million units in 2030.

Toyota's caution is entirely understandable. Anyone who knows the history of Toyota's development and world history knows how Toyota, and even Japan as a whole, ultimately failed during World War II because of blind adventurism and ambition. But on the other hand, Toyota has always been a company that is as good as a stream and has the courage to be flexible in the face of changes in the times.

Today, almost all of the world's automotive plants, and most of the large-scale factories in other areas of manufacturing, use the "Andon" system created by Toyota. The lantern is a lantern used for lighting when walking in ancient China and Japan. On the production line with this system, there is a special rope, and any employee who finds an abnormality can pull the rope and stop production to prevent defective products from flowing into the next process.

"It's not a good thing to have a problem", but "to see the problem is to have a chance to solve it." So, it's a good thing to find out that the problem is. The street light system is used to achieve the "immediate suspension system" to solve the problem immediately. Toyota's rapid transformation in the field of pure electricity is like using the street lighting system on strategic decisions.

Why is the bZ4X "on the top"? Toyota did not suddenly turn to pure electricity, but had a "premeditated"

At the same time, Toyota did not "suddenly" shift from the hybrid route to the pure electric route.

Although Toyota once paid little attention to pure electric vehicles at the product level, but in this field. Toyota actually has a layout - Toyota has never been an "opponent" of pure electric vehicles, but rather one of the pioneers of this technology.

From 1997 to 2012, Toyota introduced two generations of RAV4 EV pure electric SUV in the North American market. As the "big predecessor" of today's bZ4X, the Toyota RAV4 EV reached a pure electric range of 150 kilometers 25 years ago and did a good job in battery attenuation. Toyota dared to provide a battery warranty of up to 970 million kilometers for the RAV4 EV that year, and until 2012, a third of the first-generation RAV4 EV was still in service.

Japanese companies are still in the lead in lithium battery technology, and Toyota's achievements in the field of hybrid technology are beyond doubt, which can be directly used on top of pure electric vehicles.

For example, in order to increase the mileage, some car companies use the practice of one-sidedly increasing battery capacity. For Toyota, improving the efficiency of electric energy utilization is king. Toyota's hybrid system, although the battery capacity is relatively small, but because Toyota has fully improved the efficiency of power transmission between batteries, electronic control units, motors, etc., so that the fuel economy of models such as prius and camry hybrid version is at the leading level in the industry. The Prius plug-in hybrid model equipped with this technology has a pure electric range of more than 10% higher than other brand models with comparable battery capacity. In the field of pure electric vehicles, this advantage also exists.

In terms of battery durability technology, Toyota is also at a leading level. The battery durability of the original Prius plug-in hybrid version released in 2012 and the second generation of Prius model launched in 2017 reached the most advanced level in the world at that time, and the battery capacity maintenance rate of the second-generation Prius after ten years of use can still reach 75% of the initial state.

In the process of electrification, some of the technical advantages of hybrid models can be quickly converted to pure electric vehicles. Why is the Toyota bZ4X, although it is an "debut work", but it can show a mature posture that is not inferior to that of its opponents? That's why. At the same time, Toyota's e-TNGA architecture also provides an advanced foundation for bZ4X in terms of driving quality and active and passive safety.

【Conclusion】

As new energy subsidies approach a complete decline, China's new energy market is undergoing unprecedented changes – from large-scale procurement to a real end-consumer market. Toyota, which has always been shrewd, may have seen this feature and begun to launch a general attack on China's pure electric vehicle market.

The bZ4X is Toyota's leading role in this offensive.