Toyota's EV timing has been a bit counterintuitive. When electric car sales were booming and the federal tax credit sweetened the deal, the automaker crawled through the transition with just one so-so model, the bZ4x. Now that the incentive is gone and EV sales have cooled, Toyota suddenly has three new or refreshed models to sell, plus more on the way.
The strategy is working. In the first quarter of this year, the bZ was America's best-selling non-Tesla EV, thanks to big range and charging improvements. It's also no longer the automaker's sole battery-powered model, now joined by the smaller C-HR and the wagon-like bZ Woodland. The broader lineup helped push Toyota's U.S. EV sales up 225% in the second quarter.
