• Chevrolet Trax ($20,400 base) = 200,689
• Nissan Sentra ($22,320 base) = 152,659
• Hyundai Elantra ($22,775 base) = 136,698
• Toyota Corolla ($23,145 base) = 232,908
• Honda Civic ($23,950 base) = 242,005
• Subaru Crosstrek ($24,995 base) = 181,811
• Jeep Compass ($25,900 base) = 111,697
• Honda HR-V ($25,995 base) = 151,468
• Toyota Camry ($26,420 base) = 309,876
• Chevrolet Equinox ($26,600 base) = 236,604
• Subaru Forester ($27,095 base) = 175,521
• Kia Sportage ($27,190 base) = 161,917
• Honda Accord ($27,895 base) = 162,723
• Nissan Rogue ($28,320 base) = 245,724
• Toyota RAV4 ($28,675 base) = 475,193
• Hyundai Tucson ($28,875 base) = 206,126
• Subaru Outback ($28,895 base) = 168,771
• Honda CR-V ($29,500 base) = 402,791

It's Own Merits.  This caught my attention: "I hope Toyota doesn't scuttle their EV program in the USA due to political climates less favorable, causing the EV to have to stand on its own merits."  What exactly did that mean?  I suspect the poster was assuming buyers of bZ4X were clueless about EVs and their purchase was based entirely on trust.  That's an interesting reputation to try to address.  It doesn't matter whether it is real or just imaged, since the outcome is the same... the customer made a purchase.  Quite curious, rather than asking a question I tried to stir interest by provided some real-world data to consider along with some upcoming improvements:  I have been averaging 4.1 mi/kW over the past 1,500 miles with my AWD.  So even without the SiC upgrade coming from their next-gen eAxle, Toyota has delivered impressive efficiency.  314 miles of range from the FWD puts Toyota well into the competitive category as well.  Power from the AWD delivering 4.9 seconds for 0-60 and a towing-capacity of 1500 kg (3,306 pounds) does too.  And when it comes to DC charging, anything beyond 150 kW becomes a good example of diminishing returns.  So, who are whatever merits you infer supposed to appeal to?  That checks the boxes of what the typical showroom shopper would expect.

Made It Right.  Basing your assessment of a situation on nothing but anecdotal observations will resort in distorted conclusions.  For example: "Ohh... Shot across the bow!  Being a Bolt owner, that's a fair shot.  That being said, they, GM and LG made it right.  Took them 3 months for my particular car (and many others), but...  They eventually got it done."  The discussion was in general how automakers have dealt with surprises.  Problems come in many forms and Tesla has provided us with countless demonstrations of what to do and not to do.  Model 3 simply addressed items needing updates as they emerged.  All were reasonably fixable though.  Cybertruck had several fundamental flaws though, beyond anything fixed with software updates or minor hardware replacements.  That meant in order to "make it right", there would have to be something done to make owners feel the situation would be taken care of regardless of what it was.  Heck, we have seen Rivian quietly doing that since debut.  Unfortunately, there is no lesson learned from that so early in the process.  Lexus was back in the 90's, so I try to refer to that history.  No one ever takes the time to look it up though.  With AI assisted searches, you'd think some people would.  Oh well.  What happened with GM is still somewhat fresh in enthusiast minds.  Unfortunately, most think GM did all they could with Bolt.  That wasn't the case when you compare to Toyota though recently with bZ4X.  But I don't like bringing that up, since it leads to tangents and the point is lost.  I will still try to bring up the topic.  Perhaps someone will want further information.  This was the attempt in response to that somewhat inviting post:  GM did a terrible job of acknowledging the problem though.  Quite unlike what Toyota did with the potential of wheels falling off (none actually did), GM waited until after several fires and failed software updates before finally halting.  Kudos to the solution in the end (full replacement at no cost, with an improved pack), but there were consequences of such delay in the meantime.  Toyota learned that lesson long ago with their debut of Lexus.  GM didn't heed the warning history offered.

Better Batteries.  He completely missed the point.  I see this turning into an argument from a keyboard warrior just trying to win for the sake of winning, not actually addressing the problem: "The cylindrical cells are a better design for to much better thermal management."  Asking why to questions like that rarely ever reveal anything useful.  Use of any adjective without data to back is always problematic.  I expect the response to my reply to be nothing but rhetoric, claims of superiority without any actual advantage.  If a battery-pack already lasts the lifetime of the vehicle, what does longer achieve?  You'll end up scraping the vehicle with hope that battery-pack could find another use before being recycled.  Cylindrical batteries all glued together don't make that easy.  The other choices... like prismatic & blade... do make it easy.  The pack can be dissembled.  No glue is a big deal.  Obviously, when it comes to servicing, that is too.  Think of the less privileged markets.  They rebuild battery-pack, rebalancing those parts because the designed enables it.  That squeezes out longer usage.  Of course, that likely wasn't even taken into consider what that post was made.  He was likely thinking something specific to our market.  I was quite curious and requested more info:  Define "better" in terms of selling & supporting a mass-market vehicle, something capable of competing directly with an entry-level ICE.  In other words, this isn't an academic exercise anymore.  This is about high-volume sales.  That also means quick & easy production too... which was the point of 4680.

Drill More?  Some of this should be easy to understand.  Most people don't think about it though.  Not taking the time and only recognizing sound-bites is the point.  Anything that sounds thoughtful or logical gets that "woke" label.  Mostly, it's just an echoing of hate.  We're way past any of this making any sense.  With so many everyday devices leveraging hardware & software our parent's could never have dreamed off and much of it running from batteries, what is the draw still for fossil fuels?  Electricity is so well understood and so well proven, why keep depending upon a reduce that is dirty and cannot be renewed?  It's quite bizarre.  The market here thrives on laziness too, choosing the easy way rather than having to make an effort.  Remember when we use to take great pride in showing leadership?  Ugh.  Anywho, I had to point out today what should have been obvious:  It gets worse the more you look into the promises... like "Drill, Baby, Drill".  That doesn't actually work.  An increase in supply without an increase in demand results in a loss of profit.  Oil producers will do everything in their power to prevent that from happening.  Right now, we see evidence of that with rigs being temporarily shut down.  It's a common practice that our clueless president wasn't aware of when making his promise.

Awesome Insight.  This was a great attention-getter: "You ever look around at the other EV groups and think, "Dang, I'm actually really glad I got the BZ4X"?"  He then went on to list
reasons why: "We have separate cooling loops.  Our battery is bolted in, not glued.  Our range is honest and protected.  We're driving proven Toyota parts.  No OTA chaos.  No random bugs.  No UI surprises.  Toyota and Subaru tested this thing like it was going to war."  He had more: "We may not have the fastest charging or biggest frunk, but we have something way more important: peace of mind.  This car is going to age well, keep working, and cost us less stress down the road."  I especially liked how his list provided detail for each item.  It was a well thought out post.  I thought the insight was awesome, well deserving to share and drawing attention to.  So, I did and I have:  Well said.  Toyota's approach is to deliver something robust, not something to please enthusiasts.  That's why the design works so well at keeping the battery cool with very little effort.  The tradeoff was slow DC charging.  But with longevity top priority, that made sense.  And now with the upgrade for 2026, you can have your cake and eat it too with the added pre-conditioning.  btw, notice how most everyone avoids the topic of efficiency.  bZ already delivers great mi/kWh.  The switch to SiC in the next-gen eAxle will bump that value up even more.

Damage.  It's interesting when the same situation plays out from a very different problem.  Parallels are nothing new, but they do still really intrigue me.  I first noticed the pattern in scale.  It made no difference whether I was dealing with a local phenomenon with only a handful of people or a large organization with many locations.  Matching behavior was easy to see.  In today's case, it was about politics and how to best deal with outcomes.  Someone will lose.  How you handle it is very important.  There's a temptation to say "told you so" when it become obvious your choice triumphed.  Don't ever do that though.  It's like debating something and using "you" anywhere within context of the topic.  That immediately makes it personal and turns the exchange into an argument, where the opposition simply stops listening & caring about what you say.  The easily offended don't take criticism well and will often shrug off logic as anecdotal or bias.  I've had lots of practice with this.  It only takes a little observation to get a feel for context.  Use of the word "damage" today was a dead giveaway.  He didn't care.  He was just looking for someone to blame in today's realization of political fallout.  I added this for perspective:  That's the same circumstance I have been dealing with for years as an EV supporter.  At some point, your naysayer will notice the bigger picture and recognize how things have changed.  You have to leave that bridge open, patiently waiting for them to reach that point.  Rushing them there or any type of "told you so" is counter-productive.  In the meantime, prepare to welcome them... we we're all going to be part of the reconstruction, repairing all the damage being caused right now.

Scapegoat.  The topic of plug-in hybrids is really heating up.  With legacy automakers discovering BEV adoption will be far more difficult than they had thought, PHEV is the next logical step to take.  It boggle my mind how often the "if we build it, they will buy it" attitude clouds judgment.  The theme emerges as soon as someone takes a hopeful statement and turns it into hype.  That usually happens unintentionally.  Enthusiasts online feed on such material.  Not using critical thought make the problem grow out of control remarkably faster.  I try to provide the voice of reason, some perspective from experience.  But that tends to just fall on deaf ears.  Here's yet another attempt:

The common theme of using Toyota as a scapegoat is wearing thin at this point.  We see how the "all in" automakers have backed down on their pledges, which were quite empty in the first place.  They aren't in a good position to start offering entry-level BEVs in high-volume either.

This is why Toyota has spent the last few years phasing out ICE to raise their base to hybrid.  That makes the upsell to PHEV a much easier step, especially now that battery production in North Carolina has been established.  Meanwhile, the big upgrade to bZ is about to take place.

The reality of vehicle cost and infrastructure shortcoming is a bitter pill to swallow.  That's why status quo hasn't changed at dealers yet.  Look no further than tax-credit dependency for solid confirmation of that status.  It's really unfortunate.

At least with Toyota setting the stage for strong PHEV interest while rolling out new BEV is a sign of not being deterred by the anti-EV efforts of this administration... which begs the question of what other automakers are doing in the meantime.

Mass-Appeal Feedback, out.  This was expected, but very difficult to predict: "Have the last word if you want, I'm out."  At some point, every antagonist gives up.  They get cornered by their own comments, backed in so tight there's simply no where to go.  When the words they post turn against them, jumping ship isn't the only option.  With countless Volt enthusiasts, one by one they disappeared.  Only a handful remained.  Their plan was always the same... press the reset button.  The hope is by starting over, they'll do better the next time through.  I was all to happy to point out what he had already done twice and would likely do again:  Asking the same question again, as if it was never answered, is your choice for last word.  Nice.  That's exactly what others have done in the past when they don't like the answer.

Trophies.  This spin reminds me of the classics: "Toyota was once the king of EV participation trophies."  Some refer back to an old narrative as if it was now a well proven fact.  They usually have nothing at that point.  It's just an effort to save face.  They didn't understand Toyota's approach or the target audience.  They assumed incorrectly.  I like to deal with those by providing an analogy, something to force them to consider the situation differently.  Most of the time, it doesn't work.  But since convincing them isn't the point, that's fine.  It's lurkers who matter, those reading comments trying to learn.  If they take away some type of insight from the exchange, fantastic.  Here's a sample of such an effort:  That's only if you believed the race was a sprint, not a marathon.  Looking back now at the pace Toyota had set and how their continuous improvement approach applied, the situation looks quite different.  Put another way, all those claiming Toyota was "late for the party" had neglected to mention it was only a tailgate party.  Now without tax-credits providing an artificial bias, the actual game is about to begin.  Keep in mind, Toyota never had any interest in selling loss-leader vehicles.  Like with the first Prius, volume was never a priority.

Mass-Appeal Feedback, subject change.  If you stick with any debate determined to find some clear end, a discovery of some sort will be made.  Sometimes, it is simply an accidental reveal from an error an antagonist made while posting in haste.  Other times, it comes in the form of noticing an element of the discussion that had been overlooked.  In this case, that has happened many times.  I wasn't aware an underlying pattern existed.  Though, most behaviors follow some type of predictable path.  Anywho, that was the case today.  Here's what I shared in that regard:  btw, I learned something very insightful from our long exchange.  It hadn't crossed my mind that when an enthusiast claims the subject was changed, the actual situation was a failure to connect the dots.  That matches up with the issue of not seeing the bigger picture... which is exactly what happened in the past, hence this repeat.  It's that classic "can't see the forest" problem.