New Toyota bZ4X gains muscle, drops stupid name
Remember “The Social Network?” Tech mogul Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake) tells Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg to “drop the ‘The’” and call his growing social media empire “Facebook.” Parker said, “It’s cleaner.”. Well, Toyota took the same approach to its bZ4X EV by dropping the “4X” and adding some lean muscle for the 2026 model year.
The Toyota bZ4X drops half of its model name and adds upgrades like 124 horsepower and a NACS charger port for 2026
Much of Toyota’s lineup reads like an alphanumeric alphabet soup. GR86, bZ4X, 4Runner, and RAV4, to name a few. However, the Japanese automaker is thinning out the jungle of letters and numbers to simplify the name of its only current US-market battery electric vehicle (BEV): the bZ4X.
For 2026, the Toyota bZ4X becomes the bZ, dropping the “4X” from its three-year moniker. But that’s just the tip of the EV-berg. Toyota also bumped the bZ4X’s replacement from 214 horsepower to 338 in the dual-motor AWD application, a staggering increase of 124 ponies for the mid-cycle refresh. We estimate the power bump will take the all-wheel drive model to 60 mph in under five seconds.
Battery technology aboard the Toyota bZ gets an upgrade, too. Toyota says the front-wheel drive XLE model packs a 57.7 kWh battery pack. At higher specs, the other FWD and AWD trims get the larger, 74.7 kWh-capacity pack. The result? Toyota claims the new 74.7-kWh bZ will cover up to 314 miles. It’s an impressive 62-mile increase from the previous bZ4X’s maximum range.
And when you run the bZ down to minimum capacity, Toyota equipped the bZ4X replacement with a North American Charging System (NACS) for 2026. The brand asserts that the more accessible connection will allow drivers to replenish around 70% capacity in half an hour. Time will tell.
The bZ gets a revised and refined interior, ditching some of the funkier cockpit stylings of the previous model. Still, for simplicity’s sake, the shortened name is a good thing. What once sounded like a battery-operated BMW Z4 with all-wheel drive and heightened suspension is now the succinct and US market-friendly bZ. Ahh, much better.
