$15,000 Toyota EV Developed with 100% China Talent, Supply Chain
By H Y Nahm | 04 May, 2025

The world's biggest carmaker succumbs to the insurmountable advantages offered by China's hyper-efficient EV supply chain.

Toyota tallied 15,000 orders for its $15,000 bZ3X EV on the first day it went on sale back in March.  The only place the world's largest carmaker could have achieved this feat is China. 

The base model with a 67 kWh battery pack has an estimated range of 267 miles.

The bZ3X's success isn't due to its price which is only about average for mid-sized EVs currently sold in China.  It's due to Toyota's strategic decision to bet its premium global brand image on the development speed and cost advantages offered by China's relatively abundant engineering talent and an auto supply chain whose hyper-efficiency is unmatched elsewhere in the world.  

By fully embracing the hard new reality that China is now the proving ground for mass-market EV models, Toyota has managed to hang onto a 10% share of the Chinese market in the face of an onslaught of low-priced, fast-changing and features-rich models from Chinese EV makers.  About a fifth of Toyota's global sales of 10.8 million vehicles in 2024 came from China.

By comparison US automakers collectively accounted for only about 5.7% of China's market, due in part to their slower response to the speed at which China's auto market introduces new EV and hybrid models which now account for over 80% of China's auto sales.  Chinese carmakers had already stopped developing new combustion-engine vehicles two years ago.  Even Tesla, which held a 15% market share in 2022, saw its share slip below 3% in early 2025.  By comparison China's leading EV maker BYD now enjoys a 25% domestic market share. 

Toyota recently introduced a longer version of the bZ3X in the US as the bZ4X at a starting price of $40,000.  Due to the 100% tariff currently in effect, Chinese EVs would have to sell in the US for about 2.5 - 3 times their domestic price to allow the usual distributor profits and dealer markups.