Japanese automaking giant Toyota has launched its cheapest ever battery electric vehicle (BEV), the bZ3X, which was unveiled and went on sale in China late last week, immediately racking up 10,000 orders in its first hour.
The bZ3X, also known locally as the Bozhi 3X, was launched at an event on Thursday night by GAC Toyota, the Chinese joint venture between Toyota and GAC Group.
Billed as the Toyota’s first pure electric SUV in the RMB100,000 class, the bZ3X was first unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show in early 2024 and is the production version of the BZ FlexSpace concept which Toyota unveiled at Auto Shanghai a year prior.
Despite an exterior design which makes it look like the bigger of the two, the new bZ3X is sized a little smaller than the Toyota bZ4X and will be available exclusively in China in seven variants, including two with LiDAR-based navigation capabilities similar to that seen with Tesla’s full self-driving technology.
The two LiDAR enabled models are unsurprisingly the most expensive variants, going for RMB149,800 and RMB159,800 respectively, which converts to around $A33,000 and $A35,000 respectively.
The five variants without the LiDAR navigation technology start from RMB109,800 (around $A24,000, converted) and step up in RMB10,000 increments.
But to celebrate the launch of the new electric SUV, GAC Toyota is offering limited-time purchase bonuses, which drop the starting price of all models by RMB5,000 for the non-LiDAR-enabled models and RMB10,000 for the two LiDAR-enabled models.
The bZ3X takes another cue from Tesla, with a single large horizontal centre screen in the cabin which measures 14.6-inches and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chip.
The two variants with enhanced navigation technology use a 5.0 smart driving system from Chinese autonomous driving startup Momenta which is based on an Nvidia Orin X chip with 254 TOPS of computing power.
This navigation system subsequently provides for full-scenario NOA (Navigate on Autopilot) functionality without the need to rely on high-definition maps.
Range varies across the models, starting from 430km (CLTC) for the base model with its 50.03kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP)Â battery, up to 520km (CLTC) for the LiDAR-enhanced models with a 58.37 LFP battery, and maxing out at 610km (CLTC) from a 67.92kWh LFP battery.
Demonstrating the huge demand for affordable electric vehicles in China, GAC Toyota announced shortly after the launch event that it had received 10,000 orders in the first hour – crashing the website under the deluge of interest.
Unfortunately, despite Australia’s proximity, GAC Toyota has intimated that it has no interest in exporting the bZ3X overseas.
Credit to CnEVPost for its reporting on the Chinese-language launch event
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.