Toyota bZ4X Touring: This rapid EV estate is Toyota’s coolest car in years

With chunky looks and up to 376bhp, the Toyota bZ4X Touring channels the spirit of the sleeper wagon for an EV world.

For a number of years, Toyota has been building some of the most exciting and desirable cars around. The GR Yaris, and GR Corolla being two very strong cases in point.

Yet despite all of the Gazoo Racing division’s heroics, the world’s largest carmaker’s transition to electrification has been far more conservative.

In its original guise, Toyota’s first purpose-built EV, the bZ4X, was hampered by a lack of range and missed Toyota’s usual sense of quiet self-confidence. It has since been significantly overhauled and become everything you’d expect from a Toyota – a paragon of dependability and sense, if a little dull.

As the bZ4X began to improve, so did the Japanese brand’s understanding of electrification along with its belief in its own EV strategy.

The rather handsome C-HR+ joined Toyota’s EV passenger car portfolio, as did the Urban Cruiser. Toyota has even committed to electrifying arguably its most famous nameplate, the Land Cruiser, which is scheduled for arrival later this year.

As exciting as this is for Toyota enthusiasts, a naysayer would argue that there’s still a whiff of conservatism within its EV line-up. However, the naysayer would be wrong thanks to the bZ4X Touring.

What is it, then? Well, it’s a jacked-up estate version of the bZ4X. And it comes with ruff ‘n ready plastic cladding geared towards what Toyota describes as “family adventures”. And in top-tier trims, there is also the not-insignificant matter of two electric motors, 376bhp, and a Subaru co-developed permanent all-wheel drive (AWD) system called “X Mode”.

The 376bhp also makes the bZ4X Touring the most powerful EV that Toyota has ever made. Not just that, but it has almost 100bhp more than the GR Yaris, and 76bhp more than the GR Corolla. The electric wagon is also quicker in a straight line than both, with a suggested 0-62mph time of 4.4 seconds.

Combined, this list of – let’s be honest, rather excellent – ingredients comes together to create the coolest non-GR car Toyota makes. If you need further convincing, then read on.

Toyota bZ4X Touring design

I’m an unapologetic Wagon Elitist, so I make no bones about saying that the bZ4X Touring is a handsome thing. Toyota’s wedgy new ‘Hammerhead’ front highlights, the car’s purposeful design, and the stretched estate body style properly suit the bZ4X’s form.

The roof bars and plastic cladding give the bZ4X Touring an air of Volvo XC70-esque classy ruggedness, while the increased ride height adds an element of ruff ‘n tumble Subaru Outback Wilderness. You know, the really cool one they sell in the US, and not here…

Overall, the bZ4X Touring is a good-looking car, and good on Toyota for swallowing the brave pill and doing something different to what could have easily been yet another straightforward SUV. It is, however, very colour-dependent.

When I first encountered the bZ4X Touring at its launch in Brussels last year, the show car was finished in a sort of light metallic brown. It was by no means small, but it certainly didn’t look like a car that was just shy of five metres long. The most recent version I saw while filming for the EV Powered YouTube channel was finished in black, and it looked huge – not unpleasant, but just very much the sum of its heft.

The benefit of that heft is that the Toyota bZ4X Touring is 33% bigger than the cooking bZ4X. At 4.8 metres long and 1.67m tall, it’s 140mm longer and 20mm wider than the regular car, offering a generous boot capacity of 600 litres.

The bZ4X Touring’s cabin has split opinion at EV Powered HQ. Our Editor, Matt, has described it as “dull”. He is wrong, because I am younger (slightly…) and therefore have better eyesight.

The interior has been lifted directly from the bZ4X SUV and is very much functional and solidly made in the way that any Toyota worth its salt should be. The graphics on the infotainment screen and driver’s display are nice and clear, and I’m happy to see that Toyota has resisted the urge to use haptic controls for, well… anything, really.

The switches for the windows, drive modes, and handbrake operate with a satisfying, old-school Toyota click, and the infotainment and car controls push with a Tonka toy-like satisfaction. There’s nothing overly high-tech or particularly flamboyant here, but it’s a Toyota. “Being flash” simply isn’t its vocabulary.

All of the bZ4X Touring’s cabin surfaces feel pleasant to the touch, too. Toyota hasn’t lectured us on how sustainable the interior is, or how many recycled plastic bottles were used to make the dashboard. It’s just pleasant and refreshingly simple in its approach.

Besides, if I wanted a car with an interior designed by Liberace, I’d be looking at a Mercedes.

Toyota bZ4X Touring price, trim levels and equipment

Toyota has kept things simple with the bZ4X Touring’s trim levels and equipment. There is one battery available – a 74.7kWh unit. The battery is integrated into the car’s electric-only e-TNGA platform, which is shared with Subaru and will underpin the upcoming E-Outback estate from Toyota’s Japanese partner/rival.

The bZ4X Touring is offered in three trim levels – Design, Excel, and Excel + JBL. Entry-level Design cars are front-wheel-drive only and have 227bhp generated from a single motor. While down on power compared to its siblings, the Design trim has the best range of the lot, and manages 357 miles from a full charge.

Standard equipment includes 18-inch alloy wheels with ‘aero’ caps to maximise range, six speakers, a cabin decked out in synthetic leather and fabric, a panoramic view monitor, digital rear mirror, heated steering wheel, an 11kW onboard vehicle-to-load charger and a digital smart key that allows you to access the car from your phone.

Excel models are offered solely in dual-motor guise, with the full-fat 376bhp, AWD powertrain. As such, the additional horses cut the range to 289 miles.

Here, Toyota builds on the Design model’s equipment by adding 20-inch double five-spoke alloy wheels, a full-length panoramic sunroof, black synthetic leather trim, heated seats front and rear, ventilated driver and passenger seats, a rear digital mirror, plus Toyota’s advanced parking function and 22kW onboard charger.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Toyota bZ4X Excel + JBL edition gets all of this, and a premium, nine-speaker sound system developed by JBL. Across the bZ4X line-up, a 14-inch infotainment screen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto functionality is standard, as is a digital driver’s readout and roof rails to add to the car’s chunky, purposeful aesthetic.

Pricing has yet to be announced, but we expect the bZ4X Touring to be around the £51,000 mark when it goes on sale this spring.

Final thoughts

If you’d have told me just six years ago that I’d be massively excited about an electric Toyota estate, I’d have laughed you out of town and called you silly. Nonetheless, this is the situation I find myself in.

At the end of the day, the bZ4X Touring marks a break for Toyota. It’s chosen an estate bodystyle when not many other EV makers are exploring that segment. Sticking 376bhp and an AWD system in it because, well, it can, also shows that Toyota is sticking to its chairman Akio Toyoda’s promise of “no more boring cars”.

From what I’ve experienced thus far, I’m already sold.