Toyota Announces $15K EV (Starting Price) And It Could Be The Biggest EV Bargain In The Market Putting China On Notice That Toyota Is In The EV Game To Win It

What I found fascinating about this is that in Colorado, the Fiat 500e EV has been selling, after State and Federal Rebates, for the cost of taxes, if you lease it, you end up getting the car for 3 years for around $1,500, making it one of the best bargains in the EV market. However, this new Toyota bZ3X EV costs half as much, suggesting you could buy that car outright with these two subsidies and only have to pay transportation and taxes. Basically, owning a new car for under $2K.

Granted that is the base version and the car tops out at around $22 fully loaded, which would put you closer to $9K for a brand-new car with better performance specs than the Fiat 500e. (I should point out that the Trump administration is trying to kill the EV rebate program in the US, meaning it is likely that by the time this car arrives in the US, that won’t be an option).

Watch our Editor Armen Hareyan's Video from the Torque News YouTube channel explaining why Toyota's bZ3X EV may become an even bigger value with tariffs in the USA.

Specs of Toyota's bZ3X Aren’t Bad

The Specks on the bZ3X aren’t bad (I wish they’d come up with a better name). The base version has around 250 miles of range, with up-market versions jumping up to a more reasonable 350 miles. As you’d expect, power ranges are low, starting at 204 hp and topping out at 224 hp. I doubt you’d really notice that much of a difference. In short, you won’t be drag racing Dodge performance vehicle in this car unless you like losing by a lot.

But if you look at the Fiat 500 e, it has only 118 HP and 84 miles of range. It is tiny and nowhere near the size or performance of this new Toyota, and yet it is about twice the price. This makes the bZ3X an incredible value, and frankly, it is something I didn’t expect from Toyota, which has been more focused on hydrogen power even though that tech hasn’t been going well of late.

The car is about the same size as the popular RAV4, and that isn’t a bad thing. The RAV4 has decent interior space and has been a very popular small family car.

Interestingly, for ADAS, this car uses the top-of-the-line NVIDIA Orin X solution with 254 TOPS (an AI PC typically has 40 TOPs), making this value car surprisingly performant when it comes to low-end self-driving. And when this car was released in China, they sold 10K of them in the first hour—that is in China, which is up to its neck in value-priced EVs. That is amazing!

This May Become An Even Bigger Value With Tariffs In The US

While the current administration in the US is threatening most countries, including Japan, with Tariffs, Japan doesn’t appear to be the highest priority. In contrast, China and the US companies that depend on foreign parts appear more at risk. This could create an even bigger advantage for cars in this low-price range because they’ll remain inexpensive even after the far smaller tariffs that China is likely to have to endure.

So, cars like this Toyota vehicle could become one of the few affordable EVs during this ill-advised trade war. Given that Tesla has been ping-ponging on whether or not they’ll bring out a lower-cost car, and people are fleeing that brand, Toyota could move around Tesla just as Chinese EV maker BYD has been doing in a number of markets. 

Wrapping Up:

Toyota’s poorly named bZ3X could be a game changer for the company, given its low cost. At a time when expected US Tariffs are expected to drive up car prices for virtually every car brand in the US, domestic and foreign, Toyota could have a huge win here with a RAV4-like electric vehicle that has decent specs for car prices well below the far less capable Fiat 500e.

Now, given this car is partly built in China, it may not make it into the US until Toyota can manufacture it here or in a country not under so much Tariff risk, but if they can figure this out, this would be a game changer in the US.

Nice job Toyota!

Rob Enderle is a technology analyst at Torque News who covers automotive technology and battery developments. You can learn more about Rob on Wikipedia and follow his articles on Forbes, X, and LinkedIn.