ODB-II Data (document).  Still more content to share.  This one features use of an ODB-II reader.  I provide an illustration of what it is, a description of what benefit this is to use one, then show an example of one in use.  Along with that, I was able to provide a YouTube link to one of my videos as a working sample.  That should be useful.  It rounds out the collection nicely: Charge Timing, Charging Costs, Fast Charging, Finding Chargers and Winter Driving.  I have been really happy about being on a roll like this.  Sometimes you get lucky and following steady of new contents seems to just fall into place.  I look forward this fall to sharing them and hoping getting more feedback to work with.  Here's the latest... Plug-In Vehicle: ODB-II Data

Pre-Condition Update.  Some hoped a software update for pre-conditioning the current generation bZ4X would provide a significant improvement.  Watching ODB-II data, I saw the opportunity.  It was only while plugged in though.  It was easy to observe how Toyota backed off heating once their basic threshold criteria was reached.  Hope was that threshold would be raised.  From my experience, changing the current 35°C (95°F) setting to 40°C (104°F) shouldn't have any consequence.  Of course, it might not have any noticeable benefit either.  Tesla pre-conditions to 50°C (122°F) routinely.  That's wasteful and it pushes lithium chemistry.  Think about how much heat results from the charging.  The system has to expend energy for both that heating and the necessary cooling afterward.  Toyota strives to find less demanding approaches.  So, even the next-gen offering won't be aggressive.  This current one favors overall efficiency & longevity.  So, it was never in the cards to expect a lot from any update.  I stated it this way when an owner expressed his hope:  That generation of bZ was designed to always keep the pack cool.  It's why no matter what you try to warm the pack while driving, it barely equates to any heat.  So, you'd be stuck with an option that only works while parked.  This is why the feature only operates while plugged into DC.  You'd just be wasting time & energy if you treated that "pre-conditioning" as" as if it worked like the rest of the industry, whose systems didn't prioritize cooling & energy conservation.  Those against Toyota would distort & mislead, harming the work that was done to make this next-generation offering a true upgrade.  This reminds me of EV mode back in the days of Prius; it was easy to misunderstand and even easier to misuse.

Finding Chargers (document).  Inspiration continues.  Another one-pager is now available. This one provides simple information about finding chargers, an introduction for newbies.  Hope you find in helpful.  I particularly enjoyed creating it.  Rather than leverage content from in the past, all the images were entirely new.  I had fun figuring out what to include.  There usually isn't so much to take advantage of.  In this case, I had a ton of map information.  Hunting down the best examples became a rewarding exercise.  You can download a copy of the print file of what I ended up assembling from this webpage...  Plug-In Vehicle: Finding Chargers

Conquest.  There are some who lack the ability to see the bigger picture.  They only notice what affects them, not even being aware that other paths or outcomes are realistic.  It's really strange to witness such short-sightedness.  It's important to recognize though.  In fact, that's how "know your audience" became my mantra.  After enough hostile exchanges, the pattern of absent understanding became obvious.  Enthusiasts simply have no idea leadership or winning was an interpretation rather than an absolute.  It's all about conquest for them.  That's how the story of "The Tortoise and the Hare" turned into such a fitting analogy.  I learned they only want to win battles, that winning the war was meaningless.  That's why leading in a race, while only at a milestone, is considered a victory.  Ugh.  I point it out to them.  That wisdom often falls on deaf ears though.  Of course, sometimes posting is about providing lurkers with useful information rather than winning an argument.  In response to today's nonsense in that regard, I posted:  Hare making fun of the tortoise, clueless that the race is a marathon and not a sprint.  In other words, you're just another enthusiast celebrating a trivial milestone that with no concern about sustainable sales.  All you care about is conquest.   That's why other reviews are being ignored.  Only post the one supporting your narrative.  It's a solid sign of progress.  History reveals that enthusiast behavior to be a sign of the next stage of growth having been reached.  They do what they can to enjoy their bubble, seeing it is about to burst.

Don't be fooled by misleading claims.  Look at what the data actually shows.

Impossible.  I'm going to enjoy addressing claims like this: "Getting 61 more miles out of 2 additional kwh is impossible, no manner how you improve the motors and microprocessors."  I can see how such an assumption comes about, but at the same time see the absence of critical thinking.  Why wouldn't that be possible?  After all, we have seen reports of hyper-efficient EVs in China.  Remember 2 decades ago when the Chinese reverse-engineered our technology.  What's so unexpected about having learned from that and made advancements to it?  Heck, upon usual research & implementation efforts, inspiration for innovation comes about.  Having had better batteries for so much longer (China held LFP patents) gave them a distinct advantage to exploit & explore.  We've seen was equates to miracles in terms of technological progress with computers.  Why wouldn't such opportunity exist for automotive design too?  Of course, I already know the answer.  Years ago, that information was presented.  I saved some key points from those documented upgrade plans and waited.  Seeing exactly that playing out now is awesome.  People simply don't pay attention.  You dig, you find stuff.  In this case, it's the Denso partnership from 2019.  Manufacturing semiconductors for vehicles is following a generational research & development approach just like computers did.  Anywho, I responded with:  Smaller, more powerful motors designed for efficiency, along with a new inverter using SiC, offers a significant improvement.  The battery-pack itself likely delivers an upgrade as well.  Combine that with refined aerodynamics, it is realistic.

Read The Thread.  That's a familiar outburst.  In fact, I remember the same thing several times in the past.  An enthusiasts turned antagonist would attack with evidence that didn't actually support his claim.  It was really strange.  I couldn't tell if his clueless, lazy or dishonest.  In this case, it's looking like the latter.  He had attacked a few months ago using nothing but 2023 data to back his claims.  It didn't go well.  All his arguing ended up circular, never accomplishing anything despite many attempts.  So, he grew silent.  Now that 2026 information is starting to become available, he emerged from that slumber.  The source posted wasn't even for Subaru.  It was data from testing of the Toyota.  That was his opportunity to begin trolling again.  Ugh.  I tried to head him off with:  The topic is "2026 Subaru Solterra First Drive: Subaru's Best EV Yet".  It tells us about the improvements delivered to appease Subaru customers, loyal shoppers looking for an EV option.  The market has moved on.  Subaru's 2026 model is clear evidence of striving for sales growth beyond the early-adopter audience.

Competitive.  Spoken like a true enthusiast detached from mainstream realities: "Seems like a solid "C" effort.  Nice to see Subaru trying a little finally to catch up in EVs.  Whether it is competitive or not will come down to price."  The dead giveaway was not actually specifying a price.  Being vague is key to undermining.  Fortunately, we are now at the phase where troublemakers lose their spotlight.  Attention was easy in the past, since first-gen vehicles are so few and the audience lacks diversity.  Different priorities & perspective derail their rhetoric.  Some of it simply never reaches that audience too.  It completely messes up what "competitive" supposedly means.  In fact, that's what contributed to Volt's end.  Enthusiasts assumed incorrectly who the competition was.  Keep in mind how many times I asked the "Who?" question.  This isn't any different.  I pointed that out by pointing out:  That assumes the old paradigm of competition with other automakers, which is the phase our market is finally moving out of.  The competition now is other vehicles on the showroom floor.

Charge Timing (document).  The ideas keep flowing.  Here's another one-page document you may find handy.  For me, I have had the opportunity to display my bZ4X at 5 events over the summer.  Having material like this to post & share is really useful for conveying information about EVs.  This one was especially interesting.  After adding content I had created in the past, but adapted for presentation in this matter, I hit an impasse.  I needed something generic.  Presenting a charge-curve sample was too specific.  Only having a few real-world data points made that a challenge.  I couldn't create a graph that portrayed topic well.  Turns out, AI can.  I took advantage and had software fill in the gaps.  Numbers to make the flow smooth was actually pretty easy.  Being in spreadsheet format made verification easy too.  I hadn't ever tried that before.  In this case for teaching, content like that works well.  You can see that for yourself here... Plug-In Vehicle: Charge Timing

Serious Consideration.  At some point, this was a very expected comment to come across: "Still, if Toyota had been offering the 2026 bZ this spring (and reviews said that it performed according to specs, especially in not having the bz4x's notoriously slow charging) instead of the 2025 bZ4X, I would have seriously considered it ..."  At the time of reading that, the following was what I had to share about that (which makes me wonder what could change as the industry moves forward):  Toyota's careful watch of the market is how they win sustained profitable sales.  It's the lesson learned from hybrids.  They let early-adopters seek out opportunity, allowing automakers to enjoy conquest sales as a means of forcing the paradigm-shift to a long-term approach... because inevitably, those early-adopters will move on to whatever is new next.  In this case, they saw leases & subsidies coming to an end and positioned to be ready to address that new wave of shoppers.  This is why much of the enthusiast criticism fell on deaf ears... tortoise and the hare.

Big Daddy.  This was a comment that caught my attention: "As long as we don't end up in Orwell's 1984 where the historians are writing whatever "Big Daddy" tells them too."  That came about from the current administration quietly disappearing evidence of our past.  I remember the Bush administration doing that with efficiency research.  A program was announced to portray him as a supporter of change when in reality it was actually a restart.  All data from the previous program had been removed from public access, giving an appearance of breaking new ground rather than destroying progress of his predecessor.  That took us backward, having to redo lost work... allowing the same mistakes & exploits of the past to repeat.  Ugh.  Fortunately, I had some good news to share with regard to wasn't happening now:  We have the advantage of contemporaneous documentation.  That turned out to be a powerful tool for me, blogging as events were unfolding with hybrid history.  There's a record of what really happened as it was happening, which highlighted uncertainties at the time.   Those who attempt to rewrite history struggle with detail like that.  It exposes their rhetoric (looking back) and narrative (looking forward).

Decision Tree.  This was an interesting bit of critical thinking offered from my request for feedback: "Maybe some sort of decision tree with the two main questions being, Can you charge at home or work, and Do you take frequent trips of greater than 300 miles?  If someone can charge at home and doesn't take frequent long trips..."  Realistically, a decision tree shouldn't be necessary.  The act looking at your own needs tends to answer the question.  Can I reach the cabin?  Yes, there's several chargers along the way.  In other words, the hypotheticals just complicate matters.  Here's how I addressed the thought, hoping the look forward suggests that type of simple decision:  We're approaching a paradigm-shift.  I recognize the history pattern, when market interest changed from "Prius" being a popular alternative to it being a success story of the new standard.  Preparing while we wait for the dust to settle from NACS transition and Tesla fallout is a good use of time, which is what I'm attempting with the documents.  Delay also brings the benefit of increased DC fast-charger exposure as delayed install projects finally ramp up.  Where that puts us in early 2026 is hopefully a history repeat, where the decision-tree flattens to simple choices.  If you have overnight charging and DC is available en-route for travel, which vehicle to purchase becomes a personal preference rather than a hardware focus.

Charging Costs (document).  It's the most common question, following inquires about range.  This one focusing on charging costs.  It's always a struggle to make the content informative enough without being overwhelming or intimidating.  In this case, I got lucky because some of the content I had already addressed in the past.  It simply hadn't occurred to me the practical nature of having in one a single piece of paper would be.  Buried several pages in a document isn't good.  More taking advantage of this format will be great.  You can download a print file from this webpage... Plug-In Vehicle: Charging Costs

Income Narrative.  Whether this is a series of bad assumptions or stereotypes going unchecked, it doesn't matter.  The resulting narrative reinforces the belief that more is always better.  Needless to say, I find statements like this troubling: "Interestingly, buyers in the $30,000 market are most likely NOT to have at-home AC charging and will be heavily dependent on public DC charging (which is still scarce, expensive and inconvenient).  Because a 51kWh battery will deplete quickly, lower income drivers will need to frequently sit at DC chargers every couple days for 25 minutes a pop."  I couldn't just walk away from that.  It simply makes no sense that landlords will ignore the market forever.  But even in the near term, there's huge potential.  I pointed out:

The "know your audience" advice works on many levels.  This isn't rocket science, but clearly there's a problem recognizing what had been the entry-level market and why it is destined to return.  That's why exchanges like this can be quite constructive.

We can see ICE vehicles on the verge of serious struggle with competitively priced BEV offerings coming.  It would be denial to not recognize the advantages of choosing something with a plug... the choice is cheaper to operate, more reliable, easier to maintain, and simply a nicer drive experience.

That's exactly what growing middle-class families, those who just added a new driver, will seek.  It won't need to deliver a lot of miles.  It will have access to at-home AC charging.  They can afford a new entry-level BEV rather than settling for a used ICE.

This is exactly why both Ford & GM have been targeting $30,000 for so long.  They could see the opportunity coming.   Why you still don't remains a mystery.