The new bZ4X, Toyota’s first global electric car, is giving the Japanese giant more of a headache. The model already started his commercial career on the wrong footbecause in the middle of last year the company was forced to make a general review call due to a security failure in the anchor bolts of the wheels.
Although this setback was resolved quickly, the truth is that the problems did not end there. Numerous specialized media have criticized both the autonomy and the charging times of the Japanese SUV, which are not only worse than those of its most direct competition, but also they are very far from the official values announced by Toyota.
Various tests have indicated that the real range of the vehicle barely reaches 65% of the approved figure, and that only supports two fast charging sessions in 24 hours before restricting power to less than a third of maximum to preserve battery life.
Toyota has confirmed that European and Japanese models will receive a software update to resolve these issues. Most likely it will also reach the Subaru Solterrasince both vehicles are broadly identical and even share a production line.
The Toyota bZ4X will improve its real autonomy by 10-15%
Among other things, Toyota will modify the charge level readings in the instrumentation, which is too conservative, since marks 0% remaining when there is still 8% left with the aim of giving drivers margin to reach a station without being stranded. This margin of safety is approximately double that of other competing electric cars.
«We are going to optimize the buffer: when the instrument panel indicates that there are zero kilometers left, in reality there is still 8% charge left. Compared to the competition, our buffer is a bit larger and we want to free it up to make it usable.”recently explained robert ticknerspokesperson for Toyota UK.
Also the calculations related to the use of the air conditioning system will be updatedwhich right now contemplate too large reductions in autonomy. “We will implement a methodology for the HVAC system [calefacción, ventilación y aire acondicionado] more precise. It is possible that [actualmente] mark a reduction of 100 km, but [en realidad] could be 50 km. It will be more accurate in the future.”.
The various changes introduced should translate into an improvement in autonomy of 10-15%; In addition, the fast charging sessions allowed in 24 hours will be doubled from 2 to 3.86.
Source | Drive
