Toyota Will Put A Forgotten Concept Car Into Production

Do you remember the Toyota bZ Compact SUV Concept revealed at the 2022 Los Angeles Auto Show? No, us neither, to be honest with you. However, Toyota hasn’t forgotten – and it appears the concept is going to enter production.

A teaser image of an ‘all-new battery electric model’ has been revealed by the Japanese manufacturer, and it’s confirmed the full car will be revealed on the night of 11 March.

It has given us a little bit of marketing bumf to go with that image, too. It describes the new car as “a sleek and stylish coupe design with a spacious, comfortable and versatile interior and elevated driving dynamics.” Which is to say it’ll be an SUV with a raked roofline.

Which would line up an awful lot with the styling of the bZ Compact SUV Concept. More so when you adjust the original image published by Toyota, revealing some of the details of the car initially masked in its dark shot.

Doing that (as we have for the lead image) further reveals that rear windscreen rake, boomerang-like headlights and thin taillights. If the design is to wholesale mimic the bZ Compact, expect the roof to be offered in a contrast paint finish, lots of angular creases across the doors and the front lights to stretch the width of the front bumper.

We can only speculate for now on what will power this new electric car. If we’re to hazard a guess, we’d anticipate it to share a lot mechanically with the existing Toyota bZ4X.

If so, that’d mean a pick of front- or all-wheel drive layouts. For the bZ4X, that means either 201bhp or 215bhp (that’s not a typo, a dual-motor car only grants an extra 14bhp) with power drawn from a 71.4kWh pack.

We’ll know for sure in the coming weeks anyway. Now, if Toyota could hurry up and put the FT-Se into production next, that’d be great.