I've driven a bz4x. It's actually not that bad. It's a decent city car and drives and feels like any other Toyota. The financing is really competitive too (100

I've driven a bz4x. It's actually not that bad. It's a decent city car and drives and feels like any other Toyota. The financing is really competitive too (100-200/mo lease) and the underlying platform was co-developed with BYD. I'd have considered it if it was eligible for federal tax credits, which it won't be for at least a year. A lot of the bz4x hate seems to come from a subset of Redditor EV enthusiasts who treat their brand of EV as if it's a defining identity, instead of as a tool to take you from point A to point B. > Toyota needs to get off their haunches and release something actually competitive Toyota (like other Japanese companies) is dependent on Japanese government largesse, and METI has stated that Hydrogen Fuel Cell research and Solid State Battery research are Japan's priorities from a energy independence standpoint (they don't own the underlying IP for Li-ion batteries and the entire lithium processing supply chain is still in China, and the SSBs Toyota and Idemetsu are researching use significantly less lithium). This is reflected in Toyota's research priorities as well, but it looks like they've made some massive breakthroughs in sulfide SSBs that are in the process of being rolled out globally [0][1] (the expanded Toyota battery factory in the North Carolina will be building this battery). [0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-roll-out-solid-state-battery-evs-couple-years-india-executive-says-2024-01-11/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota... [1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-12/toyota-idemitsu-team-up-to-mass-produce-solid-state-batteries?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-12/toyota-id...