April 19th will see the debut of the RAV4-sized EV.
Toyota has been teasing the new, battery-powered SUV for months. The vehicle that will be unveiled at the Shanghai show on Monday is not one of those concepts we just see once. The company’s “Beyond Zero”, a line of zero-emission vehicles, will be inaugurated by the RAV4-sized EV. A teaser video has been released to show that it is not a production vehicle.
The futuristic steering wheel uses a similar yoke-like design to the Lexus LFZ Electrified concept that we will be seeing in China next weekend. Although Tesla didn’t create this design, the Palo Alto-based company has the courage to put it on a production vehicle (where applicable).
The controls are located right next to the wheel’s center and flank the Toyota logo. This is not a traditional steering wheel that has regular spokes large enough to hold buttons. It is possible that this will change to a more traditional layout and design on the production model. Recent reports claim that BZ4X will be the name.
The new all-electric Toyota SUV, which is based on the e-TNGA platform designed for electric vehicles and Subaru , has been co-developed by Subaru . We don’t have any details on the model at this time, but we know that the underpinnings are compatible with all-wheel-drive applications, including front- and rear-wheel drive. Future EVs based upon this hardware will feature batteries as small and large as 50 kWh and 100 kWh respectively, as well as single- or dual-motor configurations.
The People’s Republic will unveil the concept for an electric SUV on Monday. This will be ahead of the market launch of the production version in the coming years. Toyota will be launching five additional EVs, including a larger SUV that is positioned above BZ4X.