In October last year, Toyota officially released the bZ4X, the first model of the bZ pure electric series. This car is also the first model of the Toyota brand to start electrification, so it has always attracted much attention. And FAW Toyota and GAC Toyota have also started pre-sale in China.
In June, Japan's safety regulator found that the Toyota bZ4X could cause the rim bolts to loosen during sharp turns and hard braking, putting the wheels at risk of falling off. Toyota spent months fixing the problem, recalling and repurchasing more than 2,700 new vehicles.
The Nikkei said last week that Toyota had concluded its investigation and announced it would make partial changes to the vehicle's design to improve safety. The production line at the Motomachi plant in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is expected to restart in mid-October.
It is said that the wheels of the Toyota bZ4X will be fixed with hub bolts, replacing the previous bolts. The use of wheel hub bolts has the advantage of reducing the weight of the body, and some Lexus models use wheel hub bolts to fix the wheels.
In addition, Toyota's global electric vehicle manufacturing base, the first production line of the Motomachi Plant in Japan, is also the exclusive production line for models such as MIRAI, bZ4X, and Subaru Solterra. It resumed production in mid-September and is expected to restart sales to the global market as soon as October.
There are multiple media reports that the GAC Toyota bZ4X will be launched on October 10. The previously announced pre-subsidy pre-sale price was 220,000-300,000 yuan.
As the sister model of FAW Toyota bZ4X, the new car is also positioned as a pure electric medium-sized SUV. This is also the first model built by GAC Toyota based on the e-TNGA exclusive architecture. The CLTC comprehensive cruising range can provide four choices of 400km, 500km, 560km, and 615km.
The bZ4X was jointly developed by two Japanese carmakers, Toyota and Subaru, and is also Toyota's first mass-produced electric model. After restarting production, the combined production of bZ4X and Subaru Solterra is about 1,000 vehicles in October, and about 6,000 to 7,000 vehicles in November.
According to public information, this model is positioned as a pure electric medium-sized SUV, with an ultra-long wheelbase of 2850mm, a rear space of 1000mm, high-performance sound insulation glass, and measures to reduce wind noise.
The GAC Toyota bZ4X adopts a new design language exclusive to the bZ series. It is available in front-wheel drive and four-wheel drive versions. The CLTC battery life can reach up to 615km, and the official claim is that the battery pack can still maintain 90% of the battery capacity after 10 years. Equipped with X-MODE Four-wheel drive system, Grip-Control intelligent multi-road adaptation system, TSS 3.0, and more.