Toyota is one of the few automakers left without a pure electric car for sale in the United States. But there’s one on the way. As proof, we have this photo of … well, of the first foot or so of the car.
The company plans to unveil the vehicle a week from today at China’s Shanghai Auto Show. It is a global product, so we will see it for sale in the U.S.
The teaser photo, together with a previous photo of the car under a blanket, suggests that it will be a compact SUV. Its styling appears angular and sharp, departing from the design theme common to most Toyota products today.
It will likely ride on Toyota’s E-TNGA platform — a modular electric vehicle (EV) architecture that puts all of the car’s battery and motor components beneath a flat load floor. The platform allows Toyota to sell EVs with one or two electric motors, in front-, rear- or all-wheel-drive, and with varying battery sizes to support several driving ranges.
Toyota recently filed trademark applications for the name Toyota BZ and the model names BZ1, BZ2, BZ2X, BZ3, BZ4, BZ4X, and BZ5. BZ reportedly stands for “Beyond Zero” — an initiative to promote zero-emission cars.
Toyota’s best-selling vehicle in the U.S. is the RAV4 compact SUV — a vehicle that had an electric version from 1997 until 2003, and from 2012 until 2014. It seems reasonable to believe that the automaker could sell a similarly-sized electric SUV to many Americans. But we’ll have to wait for next week to bring you more details.
