Toyota Partners With BYD To Produce Smaller Electric Cars For China Market

BYD's electric car is likely to be adopted by Toyota. (photo: Twitter @BYD)

JAKARTA - Toyota Motor Corp plans to start production and sales of a small electric sedan powered by BYD Co Ltd's battery by the end of this year as part of its ongoing collaboration with the Chinese company.

For now, the China-only bZ3 sedan co-developed with BYD will be the second model in Toyota's new "Beyond Zero" (bZ) battery electric vehicle (BEV) series, which has been criticized by green activists and investors for not embracing BEVs fast enough.

The first bZ car, the bZ4X sports car, was due to hit the market in China earlier this year, but the car's global recall forced Toyota to suspend production of the model globally.

“Toyota had planned to unveil the bZ3, which uses a not-so-large Blade BYD battery, at the Beijing auto show in April. But the event was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic," a source told Reuters. This source declined to be named because the plans have not been announced. A Toyota spokesman in Beijing declined to comment on this.

"The car is roughly the same size as the Toyota Corolla model but with a larger rear seat section," the source said.

The price of the bZ3 hasn't been determined, but one of the sources said it will likely sell for around 200,000 yuan (Rp 421 million), almost 30% below the entry-level Tesla Inc Model 3.

"The bZ3 type car will be produced in Tianjin at a rate of 30,000 vehicles per year on the same assembly line as the bZ4X," the source added. The plant is jointly operated by Toyota and one of its two partners in China, the FAW Group.

According to the source, there are currently no plans for another Toyota joint venture with GAC Motor to produce the bZ3.

Toyota has long wanted production of small cars that don't compromise on comfort as the best way to popularize BEVs, but they're still struggling to produce them.

The need to stack large batteries under the floor of a car usually takes up interior space unless the roof is raised, which is why many EVs are taller SUVs than sedans.

The bZ3's smaller sedan configuration has become viable mainly due to BYD's thinner lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery technology.

One source said earlier that a typical Blade package is about 10 cm (3.9 inches) thick when the module is laid flat on the floor, about 5 cm to 10 cm thinner than other lithium-ion packages.