Electric Toyota bZ4X has a bit more range than Toyota thought

The new electric Toyota bZ4X will be arriving with buyers in the next couple of months, and those customers will get more range than Toyota thought.

It’s taken Toyota a while to take BEVs completely seriously, but with governments around the world legislating ICE and Hybrids out of existence in the next decade or so, they had no choice but to dive headlong – although, as this is Toyota, in a measured way – to keep up with legislation-driven demand for EVs.

Having pondered on their direction, in December Toyota came up with a huge 15-car plan for Toyota and Lexus to go big on EVs in the next few years, one of which was the new Toyota bZ4X electric SUV, revealed alone back in October and going on sale in the UK in December.

When Toyota announced the bZ4X, it reckoned the range available from a single charge would be a bit under 300 miles, but now the official WLTP figures are in, and the bZ4X is a bit more frugal with its charge than thought.

The 71.4kWh battery fitted to all bZ4X models can officially manage 317 miles on a charge when fitted to the front-wheel drive version and still manages 280 miles if you opt for the all-wheel version.

Toyota says the range is due to their 25 years of experience with battery technology in their hybrids, and so certain are they that their renowned build quality extends to batteries too that they’re slapping a 620,000 mile, or 10-year, warranty that the batteries will maintain at least 70 per cent of their capacity if you keep the car serviced by Toyota.