Considering how excited people get about a new Prius, you would have thought that Toyota’s first entry into the modern world of fully electric cars would have been received with much more fanfare. Instead, with modest range figures, slow acceleration and a confusing name, the Toyota bZ4X landed with more of a dull thud. It’s not like people didn’t buy the electric Toyota — some definitely did — but they weren’t buying in large numbers. Toyota’s solution for the 2026 model year was to change the name, improve the range and add more power, while also upgrading the interior. Not a bad strategy for selling more cars, if you ask me.
Additionally, instead of simply revealing the 2026 RAV4 on its own, Toyota decided to do it as part of a larger, multi-day event that also included a short drive in the new bZ. Emphasis on “short.” The drive began and ended at Toyota’s headquarters in Plano, Texas, and while the food was actually a lot better than you may be imagining, the roads themselves were pretty much what you’d expect from a Dallas suburb. AKA not twisty, two-lane mountain roads. So while I didn’t get to truly test the 2026 bZ, I did at least get to drive it and poke around in it for a bit, which means I can at least confirm one thing: You are not prepared for how quick the dual-motor bZ is.
Full Disclosure: Toyota was so desperate for me to drive the 2026 bZ that it completely redesigned the RAV4 just as an excuse to fly me to Plano, put me up in a hotel and provide the requisite food and drinks for three nights. All so I’d have the opportunity to take the bZ out for about 15 minutes.
New look inside and out
Unless you park the old bZ4X next to the new bZ, I don’t think anyone is going to notice the difference, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t differences. It’s just that the same people who saw one and thought, “Huh, I guess someone actually bought the electric Toyota,” probably don’t pay much attention to things like midcycle refreshes and updated headlights. Still, even if you don’t like the way the bZ looks, you have to admit it’s better looking than the original. Ultimately, though, the words “electric” and “Toyota” are far more important here.
Even if you’ve seen the photos, unless you’ve actually been inside a bZ4X, you probably don’t fully understand how weird the cabin was. The gauge cluster, for example, was mounted high up for better visibility, and instead of looking through the steering wheel to see how fast you were going, you were supposed to position the steering wheel below the cluster. It wasn’t something you couldn’t get used to, but it was still weird (and didn’t always work so well for drivers who were either shorter or taller than average).
The gear selector was also strange, as was the patterned cloth all over the dash. Even as someone who regularly switches from one new car to the next, the bZ4X’s interior still made me stop and say, “Huh.” In comparison, the new bZ’s interior is much more normal. It’s still a little weird, but it feels a lot more like a conventional car cabin, which the people who actually test drive these things and seriously consider buying them will probably appreciate.
More range, more power
One thing they may not appreciate, though, is the long reach to fast forward through the commercials on a podcast they’re listening to via Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. A big, wide touchscreen is great right up until you have to lean all the way over to tap something you’ll use pretty frequently, and it isn’t a Toyota-specific issue, either. It’s just the reality of going with a horizontal orientation over a vertical one.
As far as driving the new bZ goes, I don’t actually have much to report. It drives a lot like the old bZ, maybe slightly better in a few areas. I also can’t really say much about how accurate its range rating is, since a 15-minute spin isn’t exactly enough for an exhaustive test. Honestly, even the low-range bZ4X probably had enough range for 80% of people’s daily driving needs, and faster charging is more important than a few extra miles anyway. But hey, numbers sell, and if you get the 2026 bZ XLE FWD Plus, it has that coveted “3” at the beginning of its range figure now.
What people are really going to notice, though, is the extra power. While the old bZ4X wasn’t known for its acceleration, especially in front-wheel-drive form, it was still quick enough to dust a Corolla from a stop. Then again, that probably says more about the Corolla’s acceleration than the bZ4X’s. Giving the front-wheel-drive bZ now has 221 horsepower instead of the old car’s 201 hp isn’t going to change acceleration all that much, but the all-wheel-drive version, on the other hand, now has 338 hp instead of 214. That’s a big difference, and Toyota says it’ll hit 60 mph in 4.9 seconds.
Possibly even too quick
In a world where several EVs make more than 1,000 horses, 338 of them may not sound like a lot. Punch it behind the wheel of the new bZ, though, and you’re going to sound like one of those forum weirdos who love to go on long-winded rants about how the dyno results prove this automaker or that automaker underrates their horsepower, so actually their favorite car is faster than the new car with more power. Except we’re talking about an electric Toyota. Or, more specifically, an electric Toyota crossover.
When I tell you the all-wheel-drive bZ goes, I mean it goes. Yes, the number on the speedometer goes up faster than you’d expect, but more importantly, it feels so much quicker than you would ever expect. I’m also saying this as someone whose brain has been broken by motorcycles and EVs with four-digit power figures.
At least when you get into a performance EV such as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, you expect it to be pretty darn quick. Here, I could see a lot of buyers walking into a dealer, buying the electric Toyota with all-wheel drive for the winter and safety and only discovering they bought a rocket ship weeks later, while trying to make an unprotected left turn. Is that a bad thing? Not at all, at least as long as we don’t start to see a spike in Toyota bZ crash figures. It’s just not something you’re prepared for at all if you’re familiar with the way the bZ4X accelerates.
We’ll have to wait for the official launch of the new bZ before I can say much more, because, again, I barely got to drive it and definitely didn’t learn enough to talk about how it compares to any of the competition. But “better looks, more range and way quicker” is still a solid starting point for Toyota. Just, you know, maybe don’t buy the all-wheel-drive bZ for a 16-year-old with a newly minted license. Or your retired-but-still-independent-for-now parents. Obviously, they both deserve a manual Supra.
