Styling
With its 'Hammerhead' front lights and slightly neater rear lamp coast-to-coast strip, the Toyota bZ4X Touring is a handsome thing but almost (save for the aforementioned details) visually identical to the Subaru. This means the plastic-clad, high-riding estate has a nice, chunky sense of purpose about it, with arguably more balanced lines than the regular bZ4X model which predates it. Shame that the colours for the Touring are pretty monotone, although there's a nice blue (Sapphire) and the handsome Brilliant Bronze you can see in pics, which make the most of the Toyota's angular lines.
Interior
Toyota has a penchant for a particular dash layout in its EVs, so the fascia of the bZ4X Touring looks a lot like both the bZ4X (obvs) and the
C-HR+, in that it has a large 14-inch touchscreen (incorporating a mix of physical and digital climate controls) sitting centrally, with a high-mounted seven-inch TFT display for the driver's cluster to one side. It's a fine enough arrangement, as the ergonomics are good while the graphics on the screen are decent too (and you can override them with wireless Apple CarPlay or Android Auto if you prefer anyway).
But it leads to a rather homogenous look that doesn't make the bZ4X Touring's cabin feel a cut above those of its relations, and this is supposed to be the grandest EV the company makes after all. Also, the small cluster looks a touch 'plonked' in place, rather than integrated, and unless you get the top-spec Excel car with the khaki interior colourway, then the Toyota's passenger compartment is somewhat dour in feel.
However, material quality is largely excellent - the cheapest plastics are reserved for the dash-top right underneath the base of the windscreen and on the A-pillars, two places most people will hardly ever touch; canny, Toyota, canny - and the ambience is generally sound, so we can forgive the bZ4X Touring its few cabin-related foibles.
Practicality
One reason for the Touring derivative of the bZ4X to exist is to offer greater interior space, and on that score it's a big hit. Legroom is generous in the second row of the cabin, while an almost totally flat floor (there's the smallest of small humps in the centre of the footwell area) means seating three across the bench doesn't look like it would be a flight of fancy.
And then there's the boot, measuring 669 litres officially with all seats in use. That does include some underfloor storage, sure, but it's not going all the way to the roof; it's only to the lower window line, so by volume it's a bit of a whopper. And, curiously, 36 litres bigger than Subaru quotes for the E-Outback... anyway, if that's not enough cargo capacity, drop the 60:40 rear seats down and up to 1,718 litres of room is liberated.
Despite this, though, the Toyota isn't beyond reproach in the practicality stakes. In-car storage solutions are useful and numerous in the main, but there's no glovebox in the bZ4X Touring at all. Nor is there a front boot. Pop the bonnet, and there's a wealth of electrical paraphernalia under there, almost the point it looks a bit like an engine lurking within. It's not, of course, but still.
Performance
There are two powertrain choices for the Toyota bZ4X Touring, based on a solitary battery pack. This is a 74.7kWh CATL-sourced nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) unit with a usable capacity of 71kWh, which makes it
ever so slightly larger than the 73.1kWh gross/69kWh net item in the bZ4X.
Your first choice of motive power is a 165kW front-wheel-drive Touring, which places a single 224hp/269Nm e-motor on the leading axle. Despite a kerb weight of almost two tonnes, the single-motor bZ4X Touring will still run 0-62mph in 7.3 seconds and go on to a top speed of 99mph.
That acceleration ought to be more than enough oomph for most people's reasonable everyday performance needs, but then there's the dual-motor AWD we're testing here. This puts another e-motor on the rear axle to go with the front, raising total output to a huge 381hp, with both motors delivering 269Nm each - Toyota won't officially state that you therefore have 538Nm at your disposal, but with a 4.5-second 0-62mph time, we have no reason to doubt that such meaty maximum torque is on offer. Especially as the AWD Touring weighs five kilos shy of 2.1 tonnes.
While the FWD Toyota is perfectly acceptable for performance, then, it's the AWD which delivers the more impressive showing that's befitting of a top-end EV in a manufacturer's portfolio. It has effortless muscle and is properly, properly quick, while its dual-motor nature does away with the odd traction issues which afflict the single-motor car. In that, with the latter, you can disable the electronic control systems and if you then use too much throttle, its motor does a weird staccato on-off-on-off-on-off power delivery. This is exacerbated if you're on gravel, which we were for a portion of the test drive, and in its own way it's amusingly wayward behaviour from a Toyota, but even with the traction control engaged you'll often see the little yellow warning light in the cluster blinking away at you if you're even only moderately aggressive with the throttle.
There's no such issue deploying the full grunt of the AWD, though, and it doesn't even seem worse on electric consumption either. Officially, the dual-motor bZ4X Touring will only do up to 297 miles to a charge, while the front-driven variant can increase that range to 366 miles. Yet having driven the AWD around some mountainous roads in Slovenia, while the single-motor car did more motorway running and open-roads cruising, we actually saw better efficiency from the 381hp former of the two. It turned in an indicated 15.4kWh/62.1miles (which is 4 miles/kWh), while the FWD only gave back 19.1kWh/62.1 miles (3.25 miles/kWh). Naturally, if we'd taken the AWD on a longer motorway run, we'd have expected a lesser return - but even a later route in the dual-motor bZ4X Touring, again over the mountains and down the other side, driven at a somewhat more enthusiastic pace, still only saw 16.7kWh/62.1 miles (3.7 miles/kWh).
Incidentally, charging speeds are 11kW AC max for the FWD and 22kW for the AWD, with both capable of 150kW DC. At their fastest, 10-80 per cent should take 28 minutes, while the AWD can perform a 10-100 per cent cycle at 22kW in 3.5 hours; on an 11kW connection, and also for the FWD, that time increases to seven hours, while either version on a typical 7.4kW domestic wallbox would require something beyond ten hours to do the same job.
Ride & Handling
While neither variant of the Toyota bZ4X Touring is amazing in the corners, it's once again the AWD which wins the dynamic battle here. It has less propensity to understeer than the single-motor Touring and it obviously fires out of corners with more alacrity as a result of its improved traction, but it has the same feel-free steering as the FWD which serves as the major blocker to any driver amusement. It's a satisfactory set-up in a few ways, as it is consistent in response and accurate, yet it lacks for weight and meaningful bite off the dead-ahead. The handling of the AWD is therefore acceptably capable, without being in any way entertaining.
However, the pay-off is that the ride and refinement of the bZ4X Touring is marvellous. Even on the bigger 20-inch wheels of the Excel-spec AWD, the way it smothers off large lumps in the road is superb, with only occasional moments where its composure cracks slightly - and they're typically on the very worst surfaces imaginable. It's comfortable and supremely quiet at all speeds and on all types of route, and for a family-friendly electric SUV (even an estate-shaped one) that's precisely what it needs to be first and foremost, over and above being some kind of sharp-handling masterpiece.
Value
Toyota has kept the bZ4X Touring line-up very simple. If you want the lower Design specification, then you get the single-motor drivetrain with its 366-mile range, 18-inch alloy wheels, part-fabric upholstery and 224hp output, all for £45,995.
And if you plump for the Excel at £51,695, then you enjoy the AWD set-up with a lesser 297 miles of range but 381hp, as well as luxuries such as a panoramic roof, 20-inch rims, heated and ventilated front seats with heated rear seats too (it's just warming chairs in the front for the Design), the synthetic leather interior, a digital rear-view mirror, and 22kW AC charging capability. The solitary option from there really is the nine-speaker JBL premium sound system, which is only available on the Excel-grade flagship.
While understandably neither of the Tourings can fairly be called 'cheap', playing in the Toyota's favour here is that, aside from the Subaru E-Outback, there's nothing quite like an off-road-flavoured electric estate available from anywhere else. And Toyota has the edge on the Subaru in this regard, because we're expecting the E-Outback to kick off from about £55,000 or so for the 381hp AWD (as Subaru is wedded to all-paws traction, and therefore has no single-motor alternative to the lowlier bZ4X Touring), so even at getting on for 52 grand, this Toyota-badged version is cheaper than its equivalent Japanese cousin with six stars on the badge.
Verdict
As a spacious, comfortable, highly refined and pleasant-to-drive big EV, the Toyota bZ4X Touring would be easy to recommend, even if it
wasn't an estate car in the process - but that latter factor makes it even more likeable. It's by no means flawless, as the cabin is quite plain to behold, there's no glovebox nor 'froot/frunk', the handling is a touch buttoned-down and we might reasonably expect more than 300 miles of claimed range from a £50,000-plus electric model these days, but in all other respects the bZ4X Touring is a talented EV indeed - and a far cry from the
utterly underwhelming product at the other end of Toyota's zero-emission range. In fact, the bZ4X Touring is one of our preferred EVs of any size, shape, price or format going.
