I had high expectations for Toyota’s first all-electric vehicle in the U.S., but the Toyota bZ4X came up a little short, falling flat with its short range and modest power. It’s no wonder it didn’t captivate me in the same way as other compact crossover EVs I was testing at the time, like the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Hyundai Ioniq 5.
Toyota appears to have learned from the errors of its past effort because the 2026 Toyota bZ is a resounding upgrade that turned out to be one of the most underrated EVs people don’t know much about. I spent a week driving the 2026 Toyota bZ XLE FWD Plus trim, and while I was skeptical at first, it turned out to smash records I didn’t think were possible.
