Much of the news about EV model sales is about declines, with a few articles about some positive sales results. Zach has been covering most of the sales stories recently, but I’ve found another. The Toyota bZ, the former bZ4X, reportedly has seen quite an uptick in sales in the first quarter of this year. “On Wednesday, Toyota reported selling 10,029 units of the bZ crossover from January through March, a 79% gain over the same period last year. With a strong start to the year and three new electric models landing in 2026, Toyota has quickly gone from an also-ran in the EV world to a real contender.” Changing the model name from bZ4X, which sounds like an over-the-counter oral medication, to bZ might have helped the cause. Toyota also increased the range, the power output, and the charging speed. Price cuts were also implemented, and they actually might have been the key driver of the new sales. Another factor might simply be the trust some buyers have in the Toyota brand. How many millions of people have owned a Corolla, Camry, or RAV4? Perhaps they trust Toyota to do an electric vehicle right more than other brands. Yet another factor, and a related one is, what damage the Tesla CEO has done to the Tesla brand. How many people now respect and trust the Tesla CEO and his association with Donald Trump? Toyota has been noted as an EV laggard for years, and some people wrote off the bZ4x as a compliance car dud. Apparently, the enhanced version, with its 300 miles of range or so, is attracting more interest and capturing some buyers. The Tesla CEO might take a page from an unexpected source: the former Alabama University football coach Nick Saban, who said if he revealed his politics publicly, he could alienate about half the public. The Tesla CEO might have alienated millions of potential new customers and current ones by meddling in politics and oversharing on social media — plus buying an entire social media platform.
