Toyota to continue backing city cars into EV Era

Toyota’s EV onslaught means its most affordable models will each gain an electric alternative, including a successor to the recently launched Aygo X supermini. Boasting what Akio Toyoda calls a “comfortable interior designed with Europe and Japan in mind”, the new small EV will be Toyota’s answer to the MEB-based urban EVs on the way from sibling brands Volkswagen, Cupra and Skoda, and it will likely be priced to match.

Unlike Toyota’s full-sized E-TNGA-based EVs, the bZ1, as it will probably be called, could be a candidate for Toyota’s new E3 architecture, which will blend elements of the brand’s modular, combustion-orientated GA hardware with some from the new E-TNGA underpinnings. Commonality between this EV and today’s combustion-engined Aygo could have the pair built together at Toyota’s Kolín plant in the Czech Republic. Cost-effective construction solutions are key to maintaining margins in the relatively unprofitable supermini segment.

The new model’s city focus will likely mean it will major on manoeuvrability and accessibility over range, so the battery will be among the smallest of any EV in Toyota’s line-up, but that will in turn help keep costs low and weight down.

Electric Aygo X successor could take bZ1 name