Consistent with rumours from earlier this year, Toyota’s first fully electric vehicle, the bZ4X, will be arriving in Thai showrooms soon with a very tempting price thanks to EV-friendly subsidies/incentives.
According to a report from Brand Inside, information about the bZ4X’s pricing was either deliberately or accidentally posted to a social media page belonging to Thailand’s Excise Department as part of the meeting minutes of measures to further support the adoption of electric vehicles (specifically document No. 8/2565 on June 22nd, 2022).
Within that, details about the Toyota bZ4X are visible, namely its tentative pricing of 1.865 million Baht. However, it goes on to further reveal its post-subsidies price (and excluding VAT) of 1.715 million Baht, which based on the current exchange rate is equivalent to roughly RM213,246.
bZ4X priced at RM213k
This information should not be taken as certainty that the fully electric Toyota will be hitting showrooms with such a starting price but does give very strong indications of where that number could end up and, in turn, allows us to speculate about both a Malaysian launch under local distributors UMW Toyota and a general idea of how much it would cost.
Furthermore, according to the same (leaked?) document, the bZ4X slated to hit Thailand is confirmed to be equipped with a 71.4kWh battery which should give it a range of 500km between trips to the plug.
bZ4X Thailand specifications to mirror Malaysia?
Granted, that is the only configuration yet stated by the automaker since its first reveal. What isn’t known is whether the units headed to our ASEAN neighbour are the dual-motor all-wheel-drive or single-motor front-drive version, or both.
Toyota is regarded as a pioneer and leading manufacturer of hybrid vehicles and those powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, but the bZ4X, as mentioned, is their first fully electric vehicle built from the ground up.
It uses the automaker’s e-TNGA platform co-developed with Subaru, who is introducing a sister model called the Solterra. Separately, its underpinnings will also be used for the more upmarket Lexus RZ.
With the bZ4X’s launch seeming rather imminent in Thailand, we’ll be keeping our ear to the ground about the possibility of the car making its way south to Malaysia as well, hopefully, sooner rather than later. If and when that occurs, its immediate mainstream competitors will be the Hyundai IONIQ 5 and the incoming Kia EV6.