Toyota has teased a brand new electrical SUV that it’ll reveal at subsequent week’s Shanghai Motor Present as a rival for the Volkswagen ID.4 and Kia e-Niro.

The corporate has introduced that it’ll reveal the brand new mannequin – which it calls its “subsequent thrilling journey in electrification” – on 19 April. A brief video clip teases the vehicles’s entrance finish, confirming that for this all-new mannequin, the model will flip to a brand new design language, however it’s greater than seemingly the automotive we’ll see subsequent week might be a close-to-production idea than the completed automobile. 

It is going to be the primary mannequin to put on the model’s new ‘BZ’ badge – BZ standing for ‘Past Zero’, which is able to grow to be the mantra for a line-up of all-electric Toyotas utilizing a brand new platform referred to as e-TNGA.

We’re but to see the production-ready BZ, however our unique photos provide a good suggestion of how the completed automotive will look. It’ll be roughly the identical dimension because the RAV4, however its wheelbase is sort of sure to be longer to supply probably the most quantity of area to deal with the battery pack below the ground.

By the identical token, because the BZ’s packaging isn’t restricted by a combustion engine, its entrance and rear overhangs must be shorter than the RAV4’s, which ought to present extra space inside.

Chatting with Auto Specific final 12 months, Toyota Europe’s govt vice-president Matt Harrison (who will grow to be the model’s new Europe CEO in April) stated the brand new EV could be positioned barely above the RAV4 in terms of pricing, however that clients would be capable of cross-shop between the 2 fashions.

“The scale is just like RAV4,” he stated, “so between RAV4, which is already out there as a hybrid and plug-in hybrid, and this product as a zero-emissions possibility, we’ve just about obtained this lined. Clients would select between these two automobiles in our portfolio.

“We’ll need to see once we get nearer to the beginning of manufacturing what the motivation state of affairs is, as a result of this could have an effect on the place the mannequin transacts. However we’re making an attempt to make it possible for with any of the EVs, we don’t rely on incentives to safe the enterprise equation.”

It’ll be the primary automotive primarily based on Toyota’s e-TNGA platform, which has been developed in tandem with Subaru. Toyota says the underpinnings enable for both entrance, rear or all-wheel drive powertrain configurations, with various battery capacities.

Toyota additionally says e-TNGA can accommodate a spread of observe widths, wheelbases, lengths and heights, which is able to enable the model to make use of the identical chassis throughout its deliberate line-up of electrical automobiles, just by altering the physique. Volkswagen has already employed this technique with its MEB structure.

Because it had a hand within the e-TNGA platform’s improvement, Subaru will follow-up the Toyota BZ’s launch with its personal pure-electric automobile, primarily based on the identical underpinnings. Subaru teased its upcoming EV again in January with an idea unveiled to its stakeholders.

BZ stands for Past Zero

Toyota has spent a lot of the previous 12 months registering emblems for a sequence of BZ badges, claiming the whole lot from BZ1 to BZ5.

Auto Specific understands that these nameplates are for Toyota’s new household of standalone electrical fashions. The BZ initials reference “Past Zero,” which is the title of the agency’s public push in direction of zero-emissions motoring.

Among the emblems registered by Toyota – together with BZ4X and BZ5X – point out a four-wheel drive automobile. The numbers are anticipated to reference the automobile dimension, with “1” being reserved for the smallest crossover and “5” for the most important SUV.

Chatting with Auto Specific final 12 months, Toyota Europe’s govt vice-president Matt Harrison (who will grow to be the model’s new Europe CEO in April) stated the brand new EV could be positioned barely above the RAV4 in terms of pricing, however that clients would be capable of cross-shop between the 2 fashions.

“The scale is just like RAV4,” he stated, “so between RAV4, which is already out there as a hybrid and plug-in hybrid, and this product as a zero-emissions possibility, we’ve just about obtained this lined. Clients would select between these two automobiles in our portfolio.

“We’ll need to see once we get nearer to the beginning of manufacturing what the motivation state of affairs is, as a result of this could have an effect on the place the mannequin transacts. However we’re making an attempt to make it possible for with any of the EVs, we don’t rely on incentives to safe the enterprise equation.”

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