Toyota has a lineup of electric vehicles coming under the BZ name, for Beyond Zero. The first will be an electric crossover, which will debut for Europe at the Shanghai auto show next Sunday, April 18, at 9:20 p.m., to compete with other EV crossovers from Tesla, Ford, and VW. The U.S. version should make its debut later this year.
This electric crossover, which will be built on an electric platform co-developed by Toyota and Subaru, has similar styling to one of the six concept vehicles Toyota showed in 2019. It’ll have thin, jagged headlights, possibly stretching down over the front wheel arches (as seen on a similar concept), and it sports a blue Toyota badge. Toyota trademarked a blue BZ logo in Europe, which we expect will be saved for other exterior badging.
The Beyond Zero models’ names will all start with BZ and be followed by a number. In that way it’s similar to the naming scheme for Kia’s coming electric vehicles, which use “EV” followed by a number. Toyota recently filed trademarks in the U.S. for the names BZ1, BZ2, BZ2X, BZ3, BZ4, BZ4X, and BZ5. We suspect that the “X” is reserved for dual-motor, all-wheel-drive models, and this crossover could definitely be one of the models to offer that setup.
We’ll know more about Toyota’s first electric BZ model next week, when it debuts for the Europe market, and we should hear more about the U.S.-bound version later this year. Sedans, and even vans, will join the Beyond Zero lineup as well.
