Toyota Finally Fixed The 2026 Toyota bZ, But Is It Too Late To Matter?

It’s no secret that at the highest levels of Toyota, there’s not a huge amount of love for battery electric vehicles (BEVs). As the pioneer in modern hybrids, the automaker now offers partially electrified powertrains as standard or optional equipment in every model sold in North America and most models globally. Toyota is also a big fan of hydrogen fuel cells, but those are going nowhere fast in North America, at least for light-duty vehicles.

Despite that attitude, Toyota has been introducing BEVs into its lineup, including the heavily updated 2026 bZ, which we got to sample recently at the company’s North American headquarters in Texas.

Over the course of 25 years, Toyota dabbled in BEVs, starting with the 1997 RAV4 EV followed by a second-generation in 2012, built in partnership with Tesla. There was also an extremely limited production electric version of the Scion iQ that briefly appeared in 2013. It took until 2021 for Toyota to introduce a regular, volume production BEV in the form of the awkwardly named bZ4X. The bZ4X was co-developed with Subaru, which sold a nearly identical version as the Solterra. Lexus also had its own variant with unique styling as the RZ.

An Underwhelming Start

When we finally got to drive the bZ4X in spring 2022, it became immediately clear to all reviewers that Toyota’s ambivalence toward BEVs had infiltrated this crossover. To call it underwhelming would be an enormous understatement. Setting aside its somewhat controversial styling, relative to the competition, it had mediocre range, horrendous charging performance, and a high price. Toyota had only modest sales expectations for the first couple of years, and it mostly met those.

But automakers don’t get to be as successful as Toyota without listening to feedback about the products and responding to that feedback. After all, Toyota was the company that made the concept of kaizen or continuous improvement actually work in the auto industry. Kaizen usually brings us small, incremental changes that make the product a bit better. Sometimes the improvements are much more substantive. Case in point – the 2026 Toyota bZ.

Note, I haven’t mistyped the name a couple of times already. One of the more incremental but appreciated improvements to this vehicle is cutting down the name from bZ4X. Beyond Zero or bZ was supposed to represent Toyota’s lineup of BEVs, with the number representing the size class and the last letter the segment – 4 for midsize and X for crossover. The newly truncated badge is only for North America. The rest of the world where Toyota also sells several other BEVs such as the bZ3 and bZ5 will retain the original nomenclature.

Besides the new shorter badges, the 2026 bZ gets some other visual updates, most notably when they are painted those most prolific and utterly boring colors – white, grey or black. When going monochrome, bZ customers will have a vehicle where the wheel arch cladding is now painted body color. Technically, this isn’t a change for the black bZ since it already has matching cladding, but Toyota specifically mentioned it, so I’m including it here. Other colors, including red and dark blue, will retain the black cladding.

The front lighting has also been reworked to now include the same style of “hammerhead” signature lighting first seen on the current gen Prius and now also found on the Camry along with the new RAV4, CH-R and bZ Woodland. The LED projector headlamps have been moved further down on the front corners.

The final exterior change is more subtle. The charging port has been moved from the front, driver-side fender to the passenger side. That’s because Toyota has replaced the CCS port with an SAE J3400 port or NACS (that’s the charge port designed by Tesla and now being adopted by other automakers). The move is related to the short cable length used on Tesla’s V3 Superchargers, which can now be used by the bZ. Teslas all have the charge port on the left rear corner so Tesla only has a cable long enough to reach that port when the car is backed into a stall. With the port on the right front fender, bZ owners can go nose-first into a stall and reach the cable without having to use the adjacent stall as long as they pull all the way up to the curb.

Since most of the other non-Tesla chargers in North America are still equipped with CCS connectors, Toyota and Lexus will bundle in two charging adapters with all of their 2026 BEVs. There will be a CCS-J3400 adapter for DC fast charging at locations like Electrify America, EVGo and ChargePoint, and an AC adapter to connect to J1772 cables. Toyota is also bundling a dual-voltage 120V/240V charging cable.

Improving the Driving Environment

The driver’s environment also gets a significant rework that improves the functionality and appearance. The bZ4X arrived with a peculiar instrument cluster setup that had a 7-inch display mounted at the base of the windshield with a sort of valley leading up to it. The goal was to get it closer to the driver’s line of sight while driving and requiring less refocusing when going from the display to the road. The problem was that the display was mounted so low that, for me and pretty much everyone I’ve spoken with who drove the car, the top of the steering wheel blocked half the display when set to a suitable height.

The same size display is retained for 2026, but the entire dashboard has been revamped, ditching the valley and the cluster display is now mounted a couple of inches higher so that it clears the steering wheel. The central touchscreen for the Toyota Multimedia System infotainment has also been repositioned slightly and has grown from 12.3 to 14-inches across.

Another complaint of the original was the center console that was both tall and wide, creating a major barrier between the driver and front passenger. The top surface was also covered in a large swath of piano black plastic, which by now we all know is a magnet for dust and fingerprints. The new console has been significantly cut down, particularly the area between the transmission selector and armrest where the cupholders are. Ahead of the transmission selector, which retains the push-down and rotate control, there are now two Qi, wireless charging pads for phones. Perhaps best of all, the plastic now has a matte finish to it.

The backseat and cargo area remain unchanged, which is fine since both had plenty of room already. Among the interior color combinations, black/dark grey is still the predominant choice. However, the light grey option has been revamped with more of a lighter color on the top edge of the doors and the seats are now done in a two-tone arrangement with darker grey in the middle. This has the effect of both lightening the interior overall while at the same time making the portion that our backsides touch a bit less prone to stains.

Going Faster and Further

At launch the bZ4X was available with either front or all-wheel-drive. Aside from spreading out the workload to all four wheels, the AWD didn’t do much for performance as it only delivered 13 more horsepower than the single motor version at 214-hp combined and that was consumed by the extra weight of the motor. Across the bZ4X and Lexus RZ, Toyota used two different sized motors in different combinations.

The FWD bZ4X had a 150-kW motor on the front axle while the AWD used a pair of smaller 107-kW motors at each axle. The RZ450e kept the 150-kW front motor with the 107-kW motor on the rear. The single motor 2026 bZ keeps the same motor, while the AWD now gets the large/small pairing from the RZ. But the story doesn’t end there because both variants of the bZ have more power than before.

During a conversation with Chief Engineer Daisuke Ido, we learned more about how all of the changes were accomplished. The bZ4X used two different nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) battery packs depending on the motor configuration. The FWD had a Panasonic-supplied pack with a 71.4-kWh capacity, while the AWD got a 72.8-kWh CATL pack. For 2026, there are now two distinct battery packs. The base XLE FWD bZ gets a smaller 57.7-kWh pack while the XLE FWD Plus, Limited FWD and the corresponding AWD variants all use a slightly larger 74.7-kWh pack.

The larger pack retains the same chemistry and cells as the previous version (although Ido-san didn’t identify the supplier, I suspect it’s Panasonic). However, the pack casing has been redesigned to accommodate additional cells. In addition to the added energy capacity, the extra cells also help to increase the overall pack voltage from 355V to 391V on the larger pack. The smaller pack delivers 288.6V.

Without changing the internals of the motors, the extra voltage has helped to boost the output of each motor size by 10-kW to 160-kW and 90-kW. That adds up to 221-hp for the XLE FWD Plus and 338-hp for all of the AWD bZ models. The lower voltage of the smaller battery limits the single motor to 168-hp.

While the motors haven’t changed, the reduction gear sets that are part of the overall electric drive unit have been redesigned to significantly reduce the internal friction. The power electronics have also been upgraded with silicon carbide switches replacing former silicon. The power electronics switches the electric flow between the DC of the battery and AC to and from the motors, and SiC switches are typically about 7-9% more efficient than straight silicon. The bZ has also gone on a diet compared to the original, with the XLE FWD Plus having a curb weight 110-lbs lighter than the 2025 model, while the AWD has gone up by only 44-lbs. This modest gain comes mostly from the larger front motor and the battery increase. The combination of the SiC and reduced mechanical friction and weight helps the bZ achieve a nearly 25% improvement in driving range while only increasing the battery capacity by 4.6%. Despite SiC being more expensive than Si, this seems like a very reasonable trade-off.

The 2026 bZ XLE FWD Plus is rated at 314-miles per charge, compared to 252-miles for the bZ4X. The Limited AWD with its larger 20-inch wheels and tires drops that to 278-miles compared to 222-miles for the equivalent 2025 model. The new base XLE FWD with the smaller battery achieves a still respectable 235 miles which should be enough for the vast majority of people looking for a more affordable daily commuter.

Adding Electrons

As mentioned above, the 2026 bZ gets standard NACS charging ports and now supports charging at Tesla Superchargers. Regardless of what charger network bZ drivers use, the cars will now charge much faster than before. When it first launched, the bZ4X was limited to charging at just 100-kW, but various independent tests showed that the charge curve only held that level briefly before quickly ramping down. The situation was even worse with the AWD models, which took nearly 1 hour to get from 20% to 80% charge. The peak charging power for the FWD models was later increased to 150-kW, but it remained much slower to charge than competitors and was far worse when temperatures dropped.

The redesigned battery packs now include a substantially upgraded thermal management system. This helps maintain the battery in its optimal temperature band while charging so that it doesn’t need to ramp down as aggressively as before. Toyota claims a 10% to 80% charge in about 30 minutes, which won’t make Hyundai and Kia sweat, but is a huge improvement. That thermal management system is also capable of pre-heating the battery so that it can charge quickly even in very cold temperatures.

Home charging also gets a notable improvement as the former 6.6-kW on-board AC charger has been upgraded to an 11-kW unit. Plug&Charge capability is also new to the bZ. Drivers can enter payment information in their Toyota Connected app then just plug in to supported chargers including Supercharges without tapping any screens or cards.

How Does it Drive?

Toyota had both FWD and AWD models with the larger battery available for us to sample at its headquarters event. The smaller capacity base model wasn’t on hand so we can’t judge its performance, but it’s another 100-lbs lighter than the XLE FWD Plus which should offset some of the reduced output.

We didn’t do any official timing of the bZ, but Toyota quotes a 0-60 time of 8.0 seconds for the FWD models. It wasn’t so long ago that any 0-60 in under 10 seconds was considered quite respectable, and I’m old enough to remember lots of mainstream cars that took nearly twice that long. Obviously, in an era where Tesla has reset the bar for acceleration performance, that may seem leisurely, but I can guarantee you it’s fast enough to comfortably merge onto highways and complete many two-lane passing maneuvers. We didn’t have a bZ4X to compare back to back, but given the increased power and reduced weight, I’m confident that it would be slightly quicker. This is a combination that I wouldn’t have any reluctance to use as a daily driver, as like any BEV, it still feels quick and responsive off the line thanks to its instant torque response.

I spent more time in the AWD bZ and I can say without hesitation that it definitely feels far quicker than any bZ4X I’ve driven. Toyota claims the 0-60 sprint can be done in 4.9 seconds, and I totally believe it. Again, this isn’t going to challenge a Tesla Model Y Performance, but it’s in the ballpark with the regular Model Y Long Range. There are quicker accelerating BEVs out there, but when you’re under 5 seconds, it’s just a measuring contest without any meaningful benefit in daily driving.

Ride quality has never really been an issue with the bZ4X, and at least in the limited driving we got to do around the relatively smooth pavement of Plano, it continues to be comfortable. The same goes for handling, this isn’t a track day machine, but it is responsive enough to make the sort of evasive maneuvers you might need to do while commuting. The steering feels solid with no slop to speak of.

One Task Left

While Toyota has fixed pretty much everything we complained about when we first drove the bZ4X three years ago, one notable flaw remains. Toyota continues to be averse to one-pedal driving. They claim that customers coming over from internal combustion or hybrid models like the traditional feel with some creep and no coming to a full stop. This is not an unreasonable argument to make when discussing first-time BEV drivers.

But for those who have experienced the joys of one-pedal driving with strong regenerative braking, it’s a disappointment to discover you can’t do that in a bZ. Paddles on the steering wheel allow you to adjust the amount of regen when lifting off the accelerator, but the bZ won’t come to a complete stop without pressing the brake pedal.

Thankfully, one-pedal driving is something that is controlled entirely in software. That means it could easily be added as an option, and Toyota officials have acknowledged considering the function. I would urge them to add the capability via a software update, preferably before the 2026 bZ goes on sale later this year. No need to make it the default, let drivers choose to use it, but definitely make it latch between key cycles so that we don’t have to re-enable it every time once we’ve chosen it.

When and How Much?

Toyota only says the 2026 bZ will go on sale later this year, which could be next week or 6 months from now, but it will probably be sometime this Fall. Pricing also remains a mystery. Toyota did significantly reduce the bZ4X pricing last year, bringing the starting price down to about $39,000 including delivery.

During the event in Plano, Toyota Motor North America COO Mark Templin discussed tariffs. “A 25% tariff on all imported vehicles is not sustainable in the long term without significant price increases, and the industry already has an affordability problem,” said Templin. The bZ and the other derivatives, like the upcoming bZ Woodland wagon and CH-R, are all produced in Japan. If the Trump tariffs are not rolled back, we are going to see the 2026 models get more expensive, the question is how much. The base price of the XLE FWD Plus is almost certainly going to be about $40,000, probably to at least $42,000 to $44,000. That’s going to hurt attempts to increase sales. The shorter-range XLE FWD might be able to come in cheaper than the 2025 base price, but will likely still be at least $36,000-37,000.

Whatever the price ends up being, the improved range, charging, and acceleration, as well as the updated cabin, make this updated bZ the sort of competitor in its segment that Toyota should have launched three years ago. Usually, I would say better late than never, but given the tariff situation, that might not actually be true.

All photos: Author