EV battery longevity to set Toyota bZ4X apart

Toyota Australia’s first battery-electric vehicle will offer higher quality, reliability, durability and resale value than its EV rivals when the long-awaited 2024 Toyota bZ4X finally goes on sale in February next year.

The all-new mid-size electric SUV – the world’s biggest car-maker’s answer to Australia’s top-selling SUV so far in 2023, the Tesla Model Y – was released in Japan, China and the US in 2022, but its local release has been delayed several times and will now follow the launch of an updated model at this week’s 2023 Japan Mobility Show.

Toyota Australia vice-president of sales, marketing and franchise operations Sean Hanley told carsales in June that the updated bZ4X will allow the nation’s auto market leader “to get the most updated spec for the Australian market, which will be incredibly advantageous for us and that vehicle given it is our first entry for a BEV”.

Speaking to Australian press in Japan yesterday during the first media tour of Prime Planet Energy & Solutions (PPES), the joint-venture Toyota-Panasonic plant that produces the lithium-ion batteries for the bZ4X, Hanley said the factory’s strict quality control will result in superior EV battery quality and longevity than rival EVs.

“No two batteries are alike,” he said. “The batteries produced here are a cut above those offered by many others in the market in terms of quality, performance, safety and reliability.

“This comes down to advanced technology, cutting-edge production techniques and strict quality-control measures.

“A telling example is that each of the batteries built here is tested for an extensive period – not just days, but weeks. That means constant charging, discharging and recharging before they are ever fitted to a customer car.

“It’s a time-consuming but vital process. And it means that – for the bZ4X and other Toyota BEVs heading to Australia powered by this plant’s output – our batteries will be superior to many alternatives in terms of performance and reliability.”

As part of the PPES quality control techniques, only some of which were revealed to us, once assembled each battery pack is subjected to an ageing and charging/discharging process multiple times over a 20-day period – double that of some competitors – which Toyota claims contributes to battery longevity and stability of performance.

Toyota Australia is yet to announce warranty and service details for its first EV. However, its standard warranty is five years/unlimited kilometres and, in the UK, the bZ4X’s service intervals are 12 months/10,000 miles (16,000km) and its battery is covered for up to 10 years/600,000 miles (965,000km) with health checks.

In Australia, Toyota will extend the battery warranty of its hybrid vehicles from five to up to 10 years for private buyers, provided that annual health check inspections are completed, and its luxury sister brand Lexus offers an industry-leading 10-year warranty for its EV batteries.

Hanley said Toyota’s focus on quality had broader implications because one of the biggest issues for EVs is residual values.

He cited a UK study commissioned by used-car buying service ChooseMyCar.com that found EVs on average lose 51 per cent of their purchase value in three years compared with 37 per cent for petrol-powered vehicles.

“They’re [resale values] plummeting. Naturally, the higher the purchase price, the bigger the loss,” he said.

“Researchers say this is partly due to a market correction that has seen manufacturers dropping BEV sticker prices to boost flagging sales.

“Beyond that, used-car market experts suggest the trend of higher rates of depreciation is expected to continue.

“As a result, we’re seeing subscription organisations shut their doors to BEVs. They’re too exposed. The risk is too big.

“And you’ll be hard-pressed to find a fleet management organisation that will provide an operating lease on a BEV. A finance lease, yes, but unlikely an operating lease at any sort of competitive rate.

“Toyota’s experience with electrification over more than 20 years has made us acutely aware of this and other issues surrounding electrification – such as price parity, scale and general concerns among consumers.

“We’ve been able to take the learnings from our experience and apply them to the bZ4X where, for example, our options for Australian customers will include a full-service lease, taking the fear of BEV risk away from the consumer,” he said.

In other markets, the Toyota bZ4X is available with either 150kW/266Nm single-motor front-wheel drive or 160kW/337Nm dual-motor all-wheel drive powertrains.

However, specification details for the upgraded version that will be sold in Australia next year are yet to be revealed and could include increased performance for its motor/s and/or 71.4kWh battery.

In April, Toyota Motor Europe announced a bZ4X software update that was said to increase its claimed 470km range by up to 20 per cent, reduce charging times and double the number of times it can be DC fast-charged from 10-80 per cent in 24 hours, from twice to 3.8 times.

Although it has sold petrol-electric hybrids for over 25 years, Toyota is new to EVs yet says it will launch a total of seven bZ (beyond Zero) models globally by 2025 and at least three EVs in Australia by 2026.

Beyond the bZ4X, which has two sister models including the already-released Lexus RZ and the upcoming Subaru Solterra, these are expected to include a smaller electric SUV, a larger electric SUV and two electric utes including a compact car-based dual-cab and a production version of the HiLux Revo BEV Concept.

Further afield, Toyota says it will introduce a range of next-generation EVs in 2026, offering a range of up to 1000km perhaps courtesy of solid-state batteries, and plans to sell 3.5 million EVs annually by 2030.

“Prime Planet Energy and Solutions is our partner in the development of a square battery with higher energy density and a focus on performance to install in such cars,” said Hanley.

“In doing so, the aim is to reduce battery costs by 20 per cent compared with the bZ4X and to achieve a quick charge time of 20 minutes or less.

“At the same time, Toyota will play its part in the longer cruising range by improving vehicle efficiencies, such as aerodynamic performance supported by AI and weight reduction through a new modular structure for the car body.

“What is clear from all this activity is that the evolution of Toyota’s EVs will be supported by our full line-up of competitive batteries.

“And Prime Planet Energy & Solutions is playing a pivotal role in that future with top-class products delivering industry-leading safety, quality and performance.

“It’s a great strategic partnership that is dedicated to advancing battery technology to create more efficient, longer-lasting and sustainable energy solutions.”

Founded in April 2020, Prime Planet Energy and Solutions is a joint-venture between Toyota Motor Corporation (51%) and Panasonic Corporation (49%) to develop and manufacture automotive lithium-ion batteries for Toyota and other car-makers.

It now has about 8400 staff, including around 3000 in China, has signed an MOU with BHP for nickel supplies from Western Australia and sources lithium from Latin America and, potentially, Australia.

PPES’s main plant – a former Panasonic LCD TV factory in Himeji, south of Toyota HQ in Nagoya – opened a new production line in 2021 that now produces 80,000 Toyota battery packs a year and will increase annual production for Toyota to 7GWh in 2024.

But Toyota has been developing and manufacturing hybrid batteries since December 1997 with the global release of its first Prius. Since then it has produced more than 20 million batteries – including nickel-metal hydride and, since 2003, lithium-ion – and hybrid vehicles now account for more than a third of its sales.

Hanley said EVs will also take time to become mainstream, but not nearly as long as the hybrid tech pioneered by Honda and Toyota, and once again defended accusations the Japanese brand was late to the EV party.

“Toyota may not be first to market [with EVs] but we’re not behind at all,” he said.

“Currently, Toyota Motor Corporation’s R&D spending and capital investment is approximately three trillion yen a year, or more than 31 billion Australian dollars – and growing.

“On its own, the R&D component is some $13 billion a year. But here’s the rub: no matter how much we increase our upfront investments, I have to tell you that not even Toyota can do everything alone.

“That’s why our partnerships are so important and this joint-venture with Panasonic brings multiple benefits: synergy of expertise, quality and reliability, and market penetration because the joint-venture also supplies other car-makers.

“In fact, I’m pretty sure that Toyota is one of perhaps just two or three OEMs that develop their own batteries. And we’ve been doing this for a long, long time.

“This is an important fact because this joint-venture, this plant, was not cobbled together in a week or two.

“Despite what our critics might say, this factory and these batteries are the fruits of years of planning, hard work and deep thinking.

“The truth is that it’s just one of the hugely significant developments that have been part of the Toyota electrification story over many decades.”

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