The cooperation between BYD and Toyota is about to be implemented. Is it worth looking forward to?
Recently, FAW Toyota released its second model under its e-TNGA architecture - Toyota bZ3. The new car is positioned as a compact sedan, which is also the global first of this model. More importantly, it is the first work to be launched by Toyota and BYD.
bZ3 can be traced back to the bZ SDN among the 15 pure electric concept cars released by Toyota in one go in December 2019. From the design perspective, the new car has restored the main design elements of the concept car.
bZ3 continues the family design of Toyota bZ pure electric series. The through-type LED light strips with curling up front face are inspired by the hammerhead shark. The overall lines of the vehicle are straight and have edges and corners, and can be selected for two-color body. It is reported that the resistance coefficient of the new car is only 0.218.
bZ3 has completed the application of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Its car length is 4725mm, width is 1835mm, height is 1475mm, wheelbase is 2880mm, and its length belongs to the A+ class sedan, and its wheelbase has reached the level of B class car . The wheel sizes are 16 inches and 18 inches, both of which adopt a low-resistance design.
Enter the car, and the design of bZ3 has made a breakthrough compared to traditional Toyota models, and the overall layout is simple. The central control area of the "Digital Island" is mainly composed of a large vertically arranged screen, with a small number of physical buttons and gear shifting mechanisms retained below. Most of the main functions can be controlled in the central control screen. At the same time, there is a full LCD digital instrument directly in front of the driver, and it adopts the same steering wheel design on the bZ4X.
rear row configuration is relatively modest, with air conditioning air outlet, charging port and central headrest. Judging from the picture, seats with leather/fabric mixed fabric should be used.
In addition, there is one detail worth paying attention to - while the height of the car has not exceeded 1.5 meters, the bZ3 adopts a traditional sunroof design instead of the panoramic skylight commonly used in electric cars. The final space of the legs and head when riding remains to be further verified by the actual car.
The most topical part is the power part. The three-electric system of bZ3 is all purchased from FD Power, a subsidiary of BYD. The rear-drive motor is divided into 135 kW and 180 kW versions, with a maximum speed of 160km/h. The former curb weight is 1710 kg, while the latter curb weight is 1835 kg. The battery capacity of
is currently unknown, but the official said that the CLTC operating condition will exceed 600 kilometers, and the battery capacity attenuation will not exceed 10% within 10 years. Based on the vehicle weight information, it speculates that it adopts a BYD lithium iron phosphate battery solution with better cycle life but low energy density.
However, in terms of vehicle platform, bZ3 uses Toyota e-TNGA architecture rather than BYD's vehicle architecture, which is also one of the important differences between it and BYD's own products.
From the perspective of positioning, the price of bZ3 using lithium iron phosphate battery in China will be lower than bZ4X. Considering that the latter is priced between 199,800 and 284,800 yuan, the main sales range of bZ3 is likely to fall between 150,000 and 200,000 yuan. At that time, it will compete head-on with models such as GAC Aion AION S, Changan Deep Blue SL03, and will also have a slight overlap with the price range of BYD Qin PLUS EV.
But more importantly, the bZ3 will also be an important global model of Toyota, and is expected to be launched in developed markets such as Europe around 2024. In overseas markets, bZ3 is regarded as a response to traditional car companies like Toyota to respond to challenges such as , Tesla, and .
At this stage, Toyota still has a high brand awareness in the global market , but it requires more competitive costs to create pure electric models that it is in urgent need; while BYD's awareness in the global market is still in an upward period. The complementary advantages of the two will be a cooperation worthy of promising.
The author of this article is the Chek Bang Wenfeng
