Toyota’s first electric car coming to South Africa – What to expect

Toyota recently held its annual State of the Industry (SOMI) address, where it announced all the new cars it has planned for South Africa in the foreseeable future.

The event showcased all manner of autos that fans of the brand can look forward to, from the next-gen Prado to a new GR-Sport Hilux, but perhaps one of the most intriguing reveals of the day was the fact that Toyota is finally making plans to launch its first battery-electric vehicle (BEV) in the country – the bZ4X.

It doesn’t stop there, however, as Lexus is also introducing its own BEV with the RZ, though motorists will have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on either model, as they are only scheduled to release in 2025.

The Lexus is penciled in to launch in January 2025, while the Toyota is expected to launch a short while after, though no exact date is available as of yet.

What we know so far

Both the RZ and the bZ4X have been hinted for a South African debut for years at this point, as the former was first confirmed in March 2023, while the latter was stated to be “under study” for our market as far back as August 2022.

More details on on both cars were anticipated to be revealed at the 2023 SOMI event, but both were absent with headlines instead being taken by new models like the Crown, and the rest of the year came and went with little in the way of concrete plans for the Japanese corporation’s electric ambitions aside from hybrid announcements like the Lexus RX and Toyota Hilux.

Complicating matters further is the fact that Toyota will not be bringing the current-gen bZ4X that is already on sale in other markets, but will instead be launching the second generation of the BEV.

This is great news for local motorists, as it means we will be getting an improved version of a car that has admittedly had a bumpy road since its international debut, but it also means there is currently very little information surrounding the new EV.

The only thing that Toyota was able to share at the SOMI event was that its electric SUV will have approximately 400km of driving range and will be “fun to drive.”

As a point of reference, the current bZ4X is available in both front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive specifications with one or two electric motors, respectively. The single motor produces 150kW while the dual-motor arrangement (one over each axle) gains 80kW from each source for a combined output of 160kW.

In either case, a 71.4kWh battery is used as the power source, which affords the crossover a driving range of around 460km.

The Lexus, on the other hand, is already available in other countries, and thus there is more solid information to go around.

The company confirmed that the South African units will feature a Direct4 all-wheel-drive solution with a 150kW motor over the front axle and an 80kW motor over the rear, which produces a combined 230kW and 425Nm.

It shares the same platform as the Toyota, meaning it uses the same 71.4kWh power cell with a range of roughly 430km, but its status as the more upmarket of the two cars does entail a few added features.

Notably, the RZ will be the first model in South Africa to showcase its steer-by-wire system, where the steering wheel (or yoke) is electronic with no physical connection to the wheels and offers a highly-variable steering ratio to suit situations like a tight parking lot.

More information on the Lexus RZ and Toyota bZ4X will be shared closer to their launch dates in the first quarter of 2025.