, the slippery surface treatment on the wheel nuts allowed their cappings to loosen and eventually snap. He says the situation was 'pretty rare', but losing wheels is nevertheless serious. A cone-shaped washer under the wheel nuts and a new surface treatment appear to have solved the problem. Certainly, all four wheels stayed firmly in place on my vigorous test drive. So, will the world tilt off its axis at the delayed appearance of yet another family SUV powered by an entirely ordinary nickel, manganese and cobalt (NMC) lithium-ion battery pack? Probably not, but there are some interesting things to say about this new entry into the market. It's not a bad looking thing, with its dramatic creases and rear spoiler, but considering that many of its rivals look remarkably similar at a glance, you'd want to make a note of where you left it in a multi-storey car park. I'm trying to decide which is the worse name, Ora Funky Cat, or Toyota BZ4x, probably the latter as it's almost impossible to remember. It's meant to denote Beyond Zero with 4 denoting its size (similar to the RAV4) and x denoting the fact it's an SUV. It's based on a new platform called eTNGA (e){kind=link}
There’s nothing radical, but this family SUV – hybrid specialist Toyota’s landmark debut EV – is all the better for a methodical approach
That didn’t go so well, did it? Despite the hyperbole around car-making giant Toyota releasing its first battery-electric SUV, the strangely-named bZ4x gained its notoriety when it looked as though the wheels were going to come off the launch last spring; quite literally.
In fact only a few examples of the bZ4x lost wheels but, mindful of the negative publicity garnered by its slow reaction to the “inadvertent acceleration syndrome” on its cars in the US in the early part of this century, Toyota acted quickly. It withdrew the bZ4X from sale, recalled those already in circulation and set to finding a solution.
Chief engineer Daisuke Ido explains that through a combination of heat build-up and the extra weight and torque loading of the bZ4x (caused by its battery propulsion compared with an internal combustion engine), the slippery surface treatment on the wheel nuts allowed their cappings to loosen and eventually snap. He says the situation was “pretty rare”, but losing wheels is nevertheless serious. A cone-shaped washer under the wheel nuts and a new surface treatment appear to have solved the problem. Certainly, all four wheels stayed firmly in place on my vigorous test drive.
So, will the world tilt off its axis at the delayed appearance of yet another family SUV powered by an entirely ordinary nickel, manganese and cobalt (NMC) lithium-ion battery pack? Probably not, but there are some interesting things to say about this new entry into the market.