Familiar Remorse.  Yesterday, a long post from a bZ4X owner concluded with: "On the way home we were showing cold and rainy a 1.9 miles per KWH.  Two more long waits to charge to get home!  Love the car, love Toyota, hate this range and charging.  Would not buy this car now know how limited the car is on range.  For God's sake this is TOYOTA!"  That's an easy to recognize pattern.  He was poorly informed.  He needed to vent.  It is a familiar buyer's remorse post.  I replied back, seeing how his follow had morphed into propaganda material:  Without providing any data, this is just a waste of all of our time: "The other BEVs I drove being M3 (SR+ and LR) and Ioniq 5 RWD. Lightyears ahead of the bz4X."  We're seeing the same thing with those supposed terrible reviews.  Absence of a control should be obvious, but that missing basis of comparison is not.  Don't feed those poorly written articles with more of the same.  That's what contributes to rhetoric.

Needless to say, there's more to come.  Watch for it.

Toyota Loyalty.  That's the favorite approach, claiming the person is blind to everything else.  My loyalty to Toyota is fiction.  I have been an active member of our local EV group for nearly a decade now.  It is awesome getting to hang out in person with so many fellow Minnesota plug-in vehicle owners.  They are a good bunch, quite willing to share experiences & wisdom.  I'm really grateful for that.  I'm a daily participant on a very big ID.4 group (over 9,000 members).  They welcome the input and I thank them for sharing ownership detail.  It makes sense to seek out feedback from VW supporters.  They are allies with Toyota, each striving to phaseout traditional vehicles without losing the big chunk of their market now challenges by startups from China.  Assuming some type of allegiance for Toyota clouds that perspective though.  That admin continues with his insults, pushing the belief that "Toyota can do no wrong".  Sound familiar.  It's the same old nonsense.  They don't like alternate paths to the same goal, so they attack.  Shooting the messenger is so childish.  Ugh.  I put it this way:  Another clue... you choose to look the other way when I post something favorable about other automakers.  Making it appear to be all about Toyota is key to misrepresentation.

True Colors.  He's showing them now.  Creating a meme portraying Toyota as purveyor "horse & buggy" was so telling.  That goes beyond the constant insults. That's evidence of feeling threatened.  A year ago, he created the group and since then over 4,000 people have joined.  Being an undisputed leader, giving the apparent image of being well informed and fully supportive of Toyota & Subaru, no one ever questioned his stance.  Continuous references to Tesla provided an allure.  Why would he also show interest for consumers like us too?  He was hoping for Toyota to deliver improvements upon Tesla design, bring an industry giant to the game.  It would transform the industry.  Unfortunate for him, that transformation is not the way he had hope.  Tesla's focus on range & speed isn't a priority.  Toyota even said that.  They have already developed an 800-volt system, but the benefit wasn't worth the cost.  Know your audience.  Toyota customers aren't looking for ultra-fast.  They want reliable & affordable.  That's why range isn't a primary concern either.  Needless to say, he doesn't care.  This group creator has turned into a troll.  The provokes are so obvious, so desperate, so telling.  It's simply not worth the fight.  A battle won against him wouldn't achieve anything.  So instead, I just replied to the endless taunts with:  If you haven't noticed, I'm not going to bite.  The stream of insults tell us a great deal about why you are so worried.  Each reveals another clue.

Rude & Insulting.  The attitude of being "vastly superior" is getting obnoxiously bad.  Ever post, there are personal insults following exaggeration.  Watching history repeat with such vivid memories of that past now playing out again is fascinating.  My choice is to ignore as much as possible, just responding with information to counter the nonsense.  This was the latest:  Know your history.  "The car's programming (done by Toyota, presumably, which would be their VERY FIRST TIME with such programming for a production EV) is what controls the charge rate."  That couldn't be further from the truth. Prius Prime was offered with CHAdeMO right from its debut in some markets.  That carried over to UX300e a few years ago, along with support for a CCS adapter.

Since I will be a bZ4X North American AWD owner and I am already digging into details with the hope of confirming battery chemistry...

Long Game.  Assessing future success based upon initial results is risky.  The problem of audience is a big one.  To make the product reach a wider market, sacrifices must be made.  You can't just expect to make more and more will be purchased.  Enthusiasts are happy to pay a premium for something appealing to their desires.  That's a want, not a need.  To achieve cost reduction and address shortcomings inevitably discovered throughout early sales, change is required.  Heck, to deliver more refines to design are inevitable too.  That optimization is change to the product itself.  That's why comments like this are meaningless: "Pretending that a Tesla, Kia, Hyundai and others aren't "killing it" while Toyota "mails it in" is a bit bizarre, too."  The narrative is that nothing will change.  The benefit is the reality that Toyota manages change exceptionally well.  Sometimes those actions are so subtle, they don't get noticed.  That's where the "mails it in" comment is so vindicating.  Enthusiasts reviews of Corolla Cross were that it was dull & boring, nothing to standout of impress.  Consumer reviews of Corolla Cross were the crossover felt & handled nearly identical to the sedan model, making it an extremely compelling choice for those looking to upgrade but not wanting change.  I pointed out:  This is no different than Prius.  Remember that history?  Notice how it stood the test of time when rivals didn't?  Notice how it spawned popular variants?  It's about diversity & patience.  Toyota plays the long game.

No Sense.  Gotta like this rant: "...it's so obvious that they found reasonable to let customers have atrocious long recharging the 100kw awd."  It ended with: "It just make no sense."  First, since when is 100 kW slow?  People continue to swarm to Bolt, despite having a top speed of 55 kW.  Maximum speed isn't important to everyone.  Heck, look at how many still don't have 5G data-service for their phone... despite such widespread availability.  The infrastructure is well established.  The hardware & software is well proven.  It comes down to priority.  That extra speed is looked upon as a want, not a needed.  The job will still get done with slower.  The analogy doesn't work well either, since sticking with 4G doesn't provide a benefit.  In the case of Toyota's deal with CATL, even if the cells weren't LFP, they would still be lower cost.  The well proven NCM chemistry has been highly refined to reduce production cost.  That's a big deal when having to face import-tax and dealer-profit challenges.  Anywho, I pointed out what continues to be overlooked:  Actually, it makes a lot of sense.  CATL is heavy into LPF, favoring that for expansion to new markets.  Using their partnership with Toyota to do exactly that is a reasonable business choice, especially being a more robust chemistry.  After all, Toyota's focus is longevity.  Look at how the LFP patent and UX300e rollout played out.  Then consider the goals Toyota has set.  There is quite a bit of potential, especially when you look at how the other legacy automakers are dealing with results of their initial endeavors.  Placing a priority of DC fast-charging at the top is what doesn't make sense.

Lastly, notice how no one is paying attention to how successful the EV drive has been in Prius Prime and RAV4 Prime?  For that matter, UX300e has pretty much been invisible.  Each has provided priceless all-electric experience for Toyota to leverage with their "bZ" nameplate even before the first gets rolled out.

Mountain Efficiency.  Very few Tesla owners act vastly superior.  True, they are by far the worst violators of level-2 public chargers.  Sadly, I see them parking at the grocery store on a regular basis without plugging in.  Grrr.  Each incident has a minor reach.  It's not like those online who are continuously posting cherry-picked numbers.  Look for variety.  In this case, a helpful Tesla owner shared some perspective on the report from Norway.  Since most of us don't have much (or any) experience with efficiency from mountain driving, this insight was appreciated: "2.1 m/kwh over the mountains with heat blasting.  Not too far off from my Tesla, I guess.  She also reports that a full charge reads as 305 miles range and is getting 2.2 around town."  Sharing of personal observations is priceless.  That's why I was so thrilled by the ID.4 owner publishing detailed videos of his winter driving.  Results were similar, dipping that low in temperatures below freezing while driving at highway speeds.  In other words, witnessing the same thing on a bZ4X shouldn't be a scandal.  It should be expected.  That is predictable behavior under those circumstances.  So what if a government rating doesn't reflect that.  Thankfully, our EPA value here is somewhat closer to reality.  That WLTP value in Europe contributes to misleading, an opportunity being exploited by some right now to portray Toyota as having criminal intent.  Ugh.  Of course, that's to be expected.  A system not designed to measure mountain efficiency will naturally create problems for those assuming it does.  Anywho, I kept my reply brief:  2.1 mi/kWh is what I'd expect under those conditions too.  As for the range estimate, Toyota leaves a huge buffer.  One test I saw revealed another 26 miles of range after having hit 0% on the display.  To get the true SOC, you'd need to use a ODB-II reader.