Fast Forward.  Gotta love those short-sighted attempts that undermined in the past, which now seem absurd.  Yet, some still attempt the same reasoning now... despite so much evidence to the contrary: "PHEVS are great, but they don't make the manufacturer much money so they are a non-starter without incentives unless people are willing to pay more for both (history has shown that they aren't willing to pay more).  BEVs are the path forward."  Toyota has mastered hybrid production, now controlling 60% of worldwide sales.  It makes all the sense in the world that their pursuit to make plug-in hybrids profitable would also see impressive success as well.  In fact, the slowness of rollout is a clue.  You don't give in to market hype if a highly desirable design/approach has the potential for high-volume business-sustaining profit later.  Temptation to exploit a current opportunity is what others do.  Think about how GM and Tesla have capitalized that way.  Neither has a good record with customer retention.  Loyalty is not built from conquest.  When will enthusiasts learn that lesson?  Ugh.  BEV may be an answer for the masses, but taking a single step on a complicated journey doesn't make sense.  Needless to say, I had much to post on the topic... yet, refrained and kept in short:  That history has shown us blatant attempts to misrepresent PHEV by lumping all designs into a single category.  It is now a matter of the strongest contenders squeezing out those unable to compete.  As for calling BEVs the path forward, that doesn't actually mean anything.  Those best PHEV choices deliver all-electric driving while not being so disruptive to business that some struggle to survive.  Notice how the absence of diversity is putting enormous pressure on profit and causing supply bottlenecks?  Having PHEV provide a bridge is a path forward.

Good News, But.   Assumptions.  We get a lot of them, especially at this stage.  We're still dealing with misunderstandings related to early rollout.  Both newbies and those who have been doing this for a long time believe all BEV are created equal.  It's been the same for hybrids for decades.  How could their be only one type or anything beyond a single approach that would actually be able to compete?  The world is binary to many.  Either it is a win or a lose, there's nothing in between and everyone's' needs are the same.  Ugh.  This is what came about as a result of such perspective: "I knew the Panasonic pack was better, but I didn't realize it charged that much faster.  Good news.  But 4 DCFCs in a 340 mile round trip???  You're making my point for me."  His assumption was that my 340-mile trip required much DC fast-charging.  Why?  Think about it.  With a practical range of 200 miles, what possible necessity would there be for recharging so often?  Unless you are in a race taking advantage of the fastest speeds at the lowest charge-level, it makes no sense.  Of course, if it did, he would be wrong for that reason.  My reason was quite different.  I was doing reconnaissance.  It was a beautiful summer day and I wanted to explore.  Why not check out what charging opportunities there are on a pleasure trip, when there is no pressure to reach a particular destination at a particular time?  This would likely be my most adventurous trip up north too, since contracts will be awarded for NEVI projects in the next month.  That will put 4 stations at the midpoint of that drive, transforming some of the obvious uncertainty now into more of just a matter of waiting for the charge to complete.  I replied back to has comment, hoping to raise awareness about his incorrect assumption:  The point was to find & try DC fast-chargers currently available, while at the same time test the software update.  Since it is a common escape destination for me and chargers are scare (northern Minnesota), having a variety of options is obviously handy.  My final stop, just a few miles from home, was to see after that long drive how fast the CATL pack would be allowed to draw.  At 32% it pulled at 72 kW.

40% Less.  The top comment of a new bZ4X review article today summed it up nicely: "It's like they benchmarked the Bolt EUV and said, yep, this is the penultimate EV for sale today.  Let's use this as our target, only lets make it 40% less efficient."  Isn't it great how certain people just make up statistics.  Notice how there isn't any mention of actual efficiency?  Hope is that claims won't ever get fact checked.  That kind of rhetoric never ends.  I was pulled, unable to resist the temptation of letting that person have it.  What kind of efficiency does he think bZ4X actually delivers?  Based on the nonsense last winter, there wasn't really any strong data one way or the other.  Remember how reviews were based entirely upon the calculations of a dashboard value that included charging losses and a massive empty buffer?  That threw the entire industry for a curve, unaware of the difference Toyota had delivered.  To make their conservative approach even worse, there was the pessimistic estimate of available range.  That messed up countless reviewers who were making crude assumptions based on those numbers.  Needless to say, I was quite curious what numbers this particular person had come up with.  So, I asked:  Huh?  I'm consistently seeing between 4.0 and 5.0 for mi/kWh on daily drives with my bZ4X.  How is that 40% less than the much smaller & lower Bolt EUV?

VIDEO:  Summer Commute Work.  More refinement with capturing drives.  The goal is to get an informative approach in place prior to the arrival of real driving... winter in Minnesota.  The first year I had my Prius (23 years ago) that December ended up being the 2nd snowiest and 2nd coldest in Minnesota recorded history.  Being able to document served as a great weapon for fighting FUD.  There's a lot of it we can overcome with some solid real-world data.  Anywho, this particular drive was a great example of when things go well. It was a morning commute to work with the usual mix of traffic in a really nice temperature.  The resulting efficiency was great.  The video turned out really nice too...  Toyota bZ4X - Summer Commute Work

Dashboard Complaints.  Some are quite extensive: "It's a poor design with the steering wheel covering lots of the (confusing/unintuitive/minuscule/hard to customize/nagging) symbols somewhat randomly strewn across the plain.  Yes you can adjust seat and wheel to help, but you shouldn’t have too.  Gauge visibility shouldn't dictate driver comfort.  The instrument design is messy, hard to read, annoying, cluttered, and frankly a disappointment from Toyota."  I find them telling.  The same is true for traditional vehicles, heck, even more so.  People simply didn't care though.  The crude needle on an analog gauge was plenty good.  But now with digital information, it supposedly is more important.  Why?  What value do they find now that they didn't before?  Notice how complaints about the dashboard are so generic, that not a single reviewer mentions what data they were supposedly deprived of?  Most people don't.  They just assume something was missed.  Reality is, the speedometer is at the top of the screen.  It is basically the reviewer just trying to fill video content with something unique, so that review doesn't sound like all the others.  I provided a short answer to such an obvious farce:  It is interesting to hear design complaints, calling it poor by requiring some to adjust seat & wheel for visibility, but never say the same for a speedometer you must look through the steering-wheel to see and move your hand to avoid blocking.  Do we call that ironic or hypocritical?

Daily Drives.  It is amazing how much effort is spent fighting PHEV in favor of BEV with the obvious diversion of actual electricity consumed.  Focus is on principle, not outcome or even the big picture.  It's ironic how road trips get so much attention; yet, there is no consideration for the obvious alternative... simply taking a gas car instead.  When you add up DCFC time & cost, how much of a difference is there really?  Limited choice for such uncommon circumstances simply doesn't add up.  Rather than cherry-pick, you're omitting.  Ugh.  Thankfully, we do have some sensible individuals trying to keep discussions constructive: "Prius Prime drives the daily commute and errands using the same electricity as Model 3."  It is astonishing how many BEV owners absolutely refuse to acknowledge that fact.  I like to draw attention to that, poking poke them with a stick:  Yup, I commuted in mine both directions for 6 years almost always using nothing but electricity.  Toyota used that PHEV experience to deliver a BEV with a propulsion system already well refined.  There are some who absolutely refuse to acknowledge that benefit.  Notice how flawless Prius Prime has delivered all-electric drive, with heat-pump, since back in 2016?

Basics, Again.  Some of the narrative efforts get exposed: "They post pretty articles about people who drove 3,000 miles in their EVs and lie about their cost to operate it during the 3,000-mile trip as they forget to add the amount they paid for the hotel room as it charged for +8 hours.  It's mostly a failure on the EV community as it's like pulling teeth for anyone to talk about just how horrible EV are at how long they can travel for a day and also how long it takes for it to charge."  It's the nature of enthusiasts.  They obsess with a vehicle trait, blinding them from the seeing the bigger picture.  A well-rounded vehicle is consider dull, boring, uninspired, etc.  In fact, selling a vehicle in high-volume... you know, the well-rounded type that emphasize a balance of priorities... is exactly what they fight, portraying leadership as the opposite.  Ugh.  I fired back at that with:  It is more basic than that.  Focus on long road-trips distracts from the fundamental enthusiasts have promoted for the past decade, leaving your home every morning with a full battery.  Think about what the purpose of EV had been.  It was the promotion of green, being far more efficient than ICE.  Yet now, we have those same people harping on the importance of pre-conditioning... using electricity for the sake of DC charging faster.  That is a fundamental waste of energy.  Notice how the topic of efficiency, stating actual mi/kWh from those road trips, is conveniently missing?  I'm all for the promotion BEV, but there's a growing trend to endorse electricity guzzling.  Enthusiasts have seemed to lost their way.  We need to get back to the basics.  Why should everyone drive a BEV.

Acknowledging Reality.  It seemed only a matter of time before this narrative finally emerged: "I have suspected this kind of disappointment for consumers for quite sometime.  Go ICE for any serious business and only use EVs for recreational tooting around town in the interim."  Seeing how much money Ford is losing with their forced paradigm of either all-in or all-out.  Being inevitable is an under statement.  Just like adoption of the Tesla plug as the North American standard, we see no other choice.  VW, Toyota, Hyundai and Kia holding out is really a practical matter of forcing compliance, ensuring the standard truly is open.  Business shifts are painful and have consequence.  Some of that comes from looking at the situation as binary, with winners & losers.  The idea of transition & cooperation has always been a problem within the automotive industry.  Now, we must also include industry support for infrastructure.  Hybrids just annoyed those who profited from oil, but there was no change required.  Plugging in is entirely different; yet, a bridge is still available.  That confuses & complicates.  Simple-Minded keyboard warriors create narratives to deal with what they don't want to actually address.  I like to take on that fight, exposing them for not wanting to acknowledge reality:  That's just a narrative.  As the better PHEV squeeze out weaker choices, both ICE and BEV play second fiddle.  PHEV address shortcomings of infrastructure.  You can leave every morning with a full battery and drive exclusively almost every day with just electricity.  PHEV also promote BEV as the next vehicle purchase in households.  Their is a great bridge opportunity, we still get a rapid paradigm-shift to plugging in but can avoid derailment of business.  It's a win-win BEV purists are refusing to accept.

Video - Summer Commute Home.  My bZ4X finally got that big software update.  Time to get back to refining video-capture techniques, preparation for informative drives later when cold temperatures arrive.  Winter here in Minnesota was always a nice experience in the Prius Prime.  The switch from plug-in hybrid won't be much different with regard to EV driving either, but now having AWD will be better for traction.  Anywho, progress with simplification of camera setup is going well.  This capture was my commute home from work, after being plugged in during the day recharging to full...  Summer Commute Home

2025 RAV4 Prime.  There was an interesting article published yesterday.  Oddly, it didn't cause much of a stir online.  Supposedly, the next-gen RAV4 Prime will get a number of improvements.  The biggest would be an increase of EV range from the current 42 miles to 50 miles.  By 2025, that seems a realistic move.  Overcoming the current restraints of owners sticking with 120-volt charging is a logical expectation.  In fact, that is the Toyota way.  They make the next offering enticing enough to provide the used market with some inventory.  That makes the other obvious upgrade of raising base level-2 charge rate.  Naturally, the system will deliver more horsepower.  That happens when you increase battery size.  Obviously, there is an expectation of the system itself being more efficient... otherwise, it really wouldn't be looked upon as next-gen.  Simply increasing capacity would just be a mid-cycle upgrade.  Along with that comes a price drop, a more refined design to lower cost enough to pass on that saving to consumers.  My guess is none of that was exciting enough to cause much of a stir.  That's how Toyota operates... continuous improvement.  So even if a shopper had passed on that purchase choice in the past, there is strong potential for them to take another look the next time around.

On The Soapbox.  I had the chance to climb up tonight and spread some insight.  So, I did:  We have a long way to go before support for BEV moves beyond talking points.  There are some who obsess with specifications, missing opportunity to appeal to a wider audience in the process.  It's a fundamental shortcoming of enthusiasts.  They don't want to acknowledge how an ordinary consumer thinks.  Mainstream thought doesn't include understanding of vehicle operation.  Hybrids taught us that lesson well.  Owners won't take the time.  Many simply won't bother trying to figure out charge-curve or pre-conditioning.  The best we can hope for is routine overnight charging and that they will be able to find a working DCFC on road trips.  Detail won't be observed.  It will be much like car repair of the past, people really don't want to know.  They just do what needs to be done and move on.

Spreading Lies.  Sometimes, you just need to call them out.  It wasn't too long ago I was getting attacked for pointing out the benefit of Toyota's approach, claiming I was just an apologist making excuses.  That's easy to do from the perspective of being an outsider.  But now owning a BEV, driving it everyday, there really isn't anything they can say.  After all, if they portray bZ4X as crippled yet they see it performing ordinary day to day activities just fine, there is nothing you can dispute... which is why the PHEV fear is becoming evident.  It works fine.  It has proven to be capable, affordable and reliable.  So, they must spread lies.  Ugh.  This was a callout on such an attempt today:  It's quite clear there is a desperation to undermine & mislead about PHEV.  That tells an interesting story about the next chapter for BEV.  There's no excuse for spreading lies like this: "the battery will be stressed more because it's small, reducing its life expectancy".  Over a decade of real-world data from multiple automakers confirms that simply is not true.  It begs the question, what are BEV purists worried about?  They appear to be threatened by households embracing a mix of PHEV and BEV.  But that's how the market grow.  Look at how RAV4 Prime reached an audience others could not.  It's a bridge opportunity, demonstrating the benefit of plugging in and encouraging EVSE upgrades.  Too bad if you don't like that approach.