This actually isn't the first time the Toyota bZ4X is seen in Malaysia – it was previewed back in January this year, however this time around there's greater clarity of its role in our burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) market.

UMW Toyota Motor (UMWT) has brought in six units for now, with each of them finding duty in stakeholder engagement as well as development work between the government and private sectors alike, as well as within UMWT.

A local launch is then definitely being looked into, but a definite timeline hasn't been made clear just yet. In part that's due to the further studies the car will undergo here, and partly too because there's a shortage of supply worldwide, evident in main EV markets like in the United States of America and Europe.

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The cars will be used for data gathering, providing vital points of data to study usage and charging habits; things like distance travelled, battery wear in our hot and humid climate, and the icky-but-necessary identification of pain points among users.

Specs of the Toyota bZ4X in Malaysia

But for what it's worth, we like the specifications UMWT's brought in – the bZ4Xs displayed here are the ones with the maximum 500 km WLTP-rated range.

That however does come with its caveat: it's front-wheel drive, instead of all-wheel drive. Thailand has the latter; but that also means range is shortened to just 411 km on the WLTP test cycle.

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Regardless of range though, all bZ4X variants share the same 71.4 kWh lithium-ion (Li-Ion) battery. Power in this case is sent to a front-mounted electric motor that produces 204 PS and 266 Nm of torque, enough to propel the car to 100 km/h from a standstill in 8.4 seconds.

It's spun from the e-TNGA platform, one that's jointly developed by Subaru and shared by them too with the Solterra. The bZ4X can be juiced up with a DC fast charger with a rate of up to 150 kW, while the onboard charger accepts up to 6.6 kW AC charging via a Type 2 connector.

A 90 kW charger can fill the battery up to 80% in 40 minutes, while AC charging can fully charge the car in about 12 hours. Reliability is of course, at the forefront, and Toyota is promising that the battery will retain at least 70 percent of its capacity after 10 years.

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Fully-imported (CBU) from Japan, the bZ4X is made at the Motomachi plant – the same one that boasts the assembly of the GR Corolla and hydrogen fuel-cell (FCEV) Mirai, among others.

Kit inside include synthetic leather seats, a 12.3-inch infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity, a 7-inch digital instrument cluster, and an easier-to-use round steering wheel instead of the yoke certain markets get.

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LED exterior lighting and 20-inch dual-tone wheels are the rest of the stuff we can see, and underneath it all the bZ4X comes with the full suite of the Toyota Safety Sense active safety systems.

With these being evaluation units, the car isn't for sale just yet, conversely indicative pricing and all that are still not disclosed at the moment. UMWT however promises that BEVs are part of the company's product plans; a multi-pathway approach to their carbon-neutral aspirations.

In short, BEVs are only part of the programme for Toyota: furthering the whole 'something for everyone' agenda will be the addition of more hybrids, and possibly even hydrogen-powered cars down the line. The article linked below goes into further detail from the company's recent carbon neutral symposium.

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