Under the (EV) Bonnet

I was in Wolverhampton next to the local Toyota garage today, so visited to have a look at their first all electric car, the BZ4X.

I sat in the model in the showroom. It’s a large car, perhaps RAV4 in size but you don’t get the same feel because the footwell is much shallower due to the batteries underneath.  I must admit I didn’t know what to expect opening the bonnet but it was as full as a traditional internal combustion engine, as can be seen in the picture.

I got talking to one of the sales people. No possibility of a test drive currently, all demonstrators are being checked after one of them had an ‘issue’ with one of the wheels.  He reckoned you could fully charge the car for about £25, taking about 9 hours on a home charger.  With a range of 300 miles in ideal conditions, that’s not too bad in comparison with fuel costs at the moment, but I don’t know what the costs are at the roadside charging network.  For higher capacity charges you can get up to 80 % charge in 40 minutes.

We’re not thinking of changing, but it’s always worthwhile keeping up to date with the market.