Quotes from the brochure…

Extended exposure to extreme temperatures can affect longevity. Additionally, an EV battery should not always be
charged to 100%, which can strain the battery.
…
You may potentially increase the lifespan of the traction battery by only charging the battery to 80% and by
limiting the use of DC Fast Charging.

From the Toyota support website…

We recommend charging as often as needed to maintain a sufficient state of charge for your anticipated trips, with consideration of available charging methods at your destinations.

Depending on the type of charger, we recommend charging to certain limits to maintain the long-term battery health.
AC (Level 1 and Level 2): Go ahead and charge to 100%. Once 100% is reached, it will stop charging to help preserve the battery.

DC Fast Charging (Level 3): We recommend charging to 80% to achieve the maximum benefit of the quick charging speed. It is possible to charge to 100% with this method, but the charging rate will automatically be reduced once it reaches 80% to help preserve the battery. To help maintain long-term battery health, DC Fast Charging should be limited to three cycles of charging (Low Light to 80%) per day throughout the year.

It’s pretty easy to understand how folks can get confused on charging recommendations…

 

Thanks for posting this ks28744 , I have never seen this level of detail before from them. Why did they send it to you? Did you ask them to send you information? It's great information for everyone to see.

 

Yeah I called the Toyota Contact Center today and complained about the fact i can’t make a large trip with this vehicle. I am limited to around 600 miles a day in travel give or take. So they emailed this to me.

 

That sucks. That problem is not something that you would expect. As someone that has been following EVs closely for 8 years I have only heard of one other instance of that with the Nissan Leaf. This video shows that Nissan actually issued a software fix to help address the problem.

So maybe Toyota can issue a software fix. Given how slowly the vehicle chargers vs other vehicles, I can't believe it can really cause damage to the battery. That limit is just not acceptable.

 

This limit is an intentional design, not rapidgate.

 

That’s for the original owner to choose.

 

I can get behind "Owners" who ponied up the $50K for a brand new BZ4X who want full control on charging. People that lease aren't "Owners", they are borrowing the car for x dollars per month for 2-3 years that Toyota owns. Toyota (and others manufacturers) have an expectation the car is returned with normal wear & tear so the person who buys the lease return gets a great car.

Fact remains: Toyota engineered the battery to last partly through charging limits. Should Toyota be more up front about this during the sale? Yes. Should prospective EV owners and lessee's do more research to find an EV that better aligns with how they intend to drive? Yes.

Connecting the dots, people here would want to see a "fix" that includes a near 0% battery buffer, and remove all battery temperature restrictions to provide the fastest charging session possible - no matter what it does to the battery.

This has been an education on why I'm lucky not to have bought a used 30,000 mile KIA.

 

The problem here, though, is where do you find what amounts to basically proprietary information withheld by the manufacturer (ie., limits on DC charging frequency) when the manufacturer doesn’t release that information until after it’s already been figured out by the public, after the vehicle has already been selling to the public?

Those charging limits were not mentioned by Toyota for close to a year after the 2023 models hit the market…

You can’t find information that hasn’t been released. And, I doubt this is a one-off occurrence…

But overall, yes, I agree, prospective EV (as well as ICE) buyers should do extensive research before purchasing what often amounts to probably the 2nd largest big-ticket item they’ll get in their lifetime…

 

@oilerlord , you keep talking as if there was some big battery longevity problem that Toyota has solved. Where are all of these cars with bad batteries? I just sold a 2019 Hyundai Ioniq Electric that only had air battery cooling, and after 6 years of ownership, it showed very little degradation, and was performing flawlessly. Is Toyota the only company that is trying to make batteries that last? It's like saying that they built a 2.4 liter 4 cylinder engine that only gives 100 horsepower, but will last much longer than other manufacturers, or we made our gas tank only a 7 gallon capacity, but we guarantee it will never rust out.

Also, Toyota SAYS battery longevity is the reason the battery charges so poorly, but we have no proof of that.

The other important thing to remember is, if you have a fast charging car, you can still baby it if you want to and not charge it fast. If you think that charging your car slowly will greatly increase your battery life, then rarely DCFC it, and when you do, choose a 100 or 150kw charger. The vast majority of people don't charge their DCFC their cars that often anyway. bz4x owners don't have a choice, it's always slow charging for us, and if we're on a road trip, we have a hard limit for even that slow charging speed. All the other car manufacturers can offer faster charging, and no DCFC hard limits, and Toyota has to have a hard limit AND provide slow charging? Their battery chemistry and/or cooling systems must be inferior to other automakers if they have to hard limit slow charging. It just doesn't make sense. I thought the Alex on Autos video that was posted on this forum where he showed a cutaway of the bz4x and talked about the cooling system and said that it didn't look robust and borrowed it from their hybrids was very telling (sorry, I couldn't find it in a quick search).

My other point is, why is the CATL battery charging worse than the Panasonic battery in the FWD? Are the FWD batteries not going to give that long lasting Toyota performance?

So, what do I think happened? I think Toyota had no real interest in creating a competitive EV in whatever year the bz4x was designed. They are happy with their business overall, and simply don't want to spend money on development. They took a RAV4 and did as little as possible to make an EV out of it. And economically, that might have been the right business decision. That doesn't mean that people have to say it's a good EV when compared to other EVs.

 

Also, Toyota SAYS battery longevity is the reason the battery charges so poorly, but we have no proof of that.

To be fair, the BZ4X sample size is small, and hasn't been on the market for 10 years, not enough time has passed to prove anything. The reason the battery charges the way it does was by design. You call it "poor", while others may call it designed to last.

I'll be sure to ask Toyota to run a battery report in 2034, and I'll share it here.

That doesn't mean that people have to say it's a good EV when compared to other EVs.

No one is asking you to.

 

The CATL cell chosen has a cell manufacturer’s specification that charging current should be limited to 250A.

The Panasonic cell chosen is spec’ed at a 400A limit.

Toyota honors that specification in how they seem to have programmed the charging algorithm.

Don’t expect any changes to anything but maybe the number of DCFC per day. And to get that, we’ll have to all make a very big stink.

 

The CATL cell chosen has a cell manufacturer’s specification that charging current should be limited to 250A.

The Panasonic cell chosen is spec’ed at a 400A limit.
...

I would love to know how and why they decided to use the CATL cells. You would think that now years later, they could switch to different cells, but years later they still can't give new owner two key fobs so... probably not.

 

In essence, we are all victims of the actions of Toyota’s selection process that decided on “less-than-optimum” battery packs…

As @n6nl stated above… we pretty much have to play the hand we were dealt…

 

we are all victims of the actions of Toyota’s selection process

I'm reading the words "debacle" and "victims"

So dramatic...

People knew going in, this Toyota has among the slowest L2 and L3 charging available (It's listed in the specs, and in dozens of YouTube videos) You didn't know there is a charge curve? That's on the internet too.

To this day, Ford knew there were problems with Firestone tires, people got killed, and they continued to sell them anyway until more and more people died. That was a debacle, and those were victims...not someone who's car's charge drops down to L2. No offense, but get real, guys.

If you really feel you're a victim here...get a lawyer and lemon law your car.

 

I also suspect that when the limits were chosen, the recent (at that time) battery fires and battery recalls were very much on their minds.

I will say that by producing these sub-standard vehicles, they did get an opportunity to expand their testing and development with DENSO of electric motors, controllers, etc., and probably have now learned a few things NOT to do.

So when they (2030) finally have production-quality and production quantity solid state batteries, they will be further along than if they skipped/delayed.

That said, they really, really, really need to improve their software roll-out to avoid dealer service visits for software updates.

They should have rolled out the fix for the lack of ”sticky” charging limits a month after it was discovered, not wait until ”next year‘s update”. They could have been incrementally improving things, but their overall architecture of how individual ECUs are managed is stuck in the 90’s, driven very much by their insistence on re-using as much of their existing kit as possible (like that 6.6kW AC charger that came from the upgrade available for the RAV4 PHEV).

Stuck in the past…

 

stuck in the 90’s, driven very much by their insistence on re-using as much of their existing kit as possible (like that 6.6kW AC charger that came from the upgrade available for the RAV4 PHEV).

Stuck in the past…

They could have been incrementally improving things, but their overall architecture of how individual ECUs are managed is stuck in the 90’s,

And yet, you bought or leased this apparent dinosaur of an EV anyway, that dozens of YouTube influencers either laughed at, told you not to buy, or otherwise said there were better choices. Please help me understand

 

@oilerlord …

Some of us accepted the manufacturer claims at face value and purchased the vehicle as soon as it became available, before there were any substantial reviews posted. It’s not like Toyota didn’t have any electrical experience in vehicles, after all…the Prius has been around forever…

Please understand we are not all fanboys like you appear to suggest that you are in your ignoring of the vehicle shortfalls.

As I’ve told you before, I’m not dissatisfied with the vehicle,… only pointing out the shortfalls, and after owning approximately 100+ vehicles in my 70 years, I will also freely say that I can’t remember a single one that didn’t have at least some issue I thought could be improved upon.

Pointing out how a product is deficient does not necessarily or automatically translate into dislike of the product. That’s how products improve over generations…

 

Please understand we are not all fanboys like you appear to suggest that you are in your ignoring of the vehicle shortfalls.

Who's ignoring shortfalls? I've said several times, the BZ doesn't charge as fast, doesn't have the range, and has a limitation on how many times per day you can fast charge the car. If anything, I'm about the only person here sharing some of the positives about the BZ4X.

Usually, forums are a place to help other owners understand the good and bad about their cars, with balanced views about both so people can help each other out, and make an informed decision. I mean, calling us all "victims" is a bit over the top, isn't it? I don't feel like one...

Honestly, the constant bitching about the BZ4X kind of kills my (and probably other's) excitement about their car because I've only owned it for a month. Maybe I'm digging in a bit because the car is far better than the press it's been getting. That's not being a fanboy, that's being balanced. I'm going to give this car a fair shake.

Pointing out how a product is deficient does not necessarily or automatically translate into dislike of the product.

Pointing out the positive aspects of a car doesn't necessarily or automatically make someone a fanboy either. Toyota has stated they've reduced charge current and DC charging frequency in favor of the battery's longevity. That's not being a fanboy, it's understanding what aligns with Toyota's reputation for long term reliability.

 

In the end, the bZ4x and Solterra are nicely appointed vehicles, with an overall great fit-and-finish, both interior and exterior.

Its “Achilles heel”, though, is a self-imposed DC charging restriction that separates it from all other EV competition in that, AFAIK, is the only EV with such restrictions imposed on it. Coupled with that is a standard slower charging rate due to the selected traction battery unit in the vehicle. This wouldn’t be such an issue if the battery pack provided longer range, requiring less frequent charging events on a highway trip.

Some will argue that these restrictions are due to battery life preservation, and that may be true. OTOH, EVs sales rate high in the leasing arena, and few lease-holders are going to give much consideration to that, in a vehicle they only expect to drive for 2-3 years before moving to another vehicle. For them, long-term battery life brings nothing to the table.

While it’s a great local-travel vehicle, it’s far from optimum in any type of sustained, long-distance travel. And, it’s my opinion that limitation will prevent the currently-manufactured vehicle design from ever being anything more than a niche player in the wider EV model lineup.

I doubt any intelligent, informed EV buyer would give significant consideration to this vehicle if they regularly had to travel over 350-400 miles in a 24 hour period. That’s a shame, because without the above mentioned shortfalls, this vehicle could have been along side the other top EVs in the market…

 

It seems that irony always gets lost on a few folks..

 

As seen from this video, the charging infrastructure is continuously improving, which for long road trips bz4x owners won't be able to take advantage of...