{"id":34770,"date":"2022-10-28T09:03:54","date_gmt":"2022-10-28T13:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=34770"},"modified":"2022-10-28T09:03:54","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T13:03:54","slug":"toyota-halves-bz4x-lease-downpayment-in-japan-to-spur-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=34770","title":{"rendered":"Toyota Halves bZ4X Lease Down Payment In Japan To Spur Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things are not going well for Toyota’s first-ever mass-produced EV, the bZ4X.\u00a0Toyota recalled all bZ4X SUVs and halted production only two months after launch upon discovering that sharp turns and sudden braking could loosen a hub bolt, increasing the risk of a wheel falling off.<\/p>\n

The issue was fixed in the meantime and production restarted on October 6<\/a> at Toyota’s Motomachi plant in Japan, but the bZ4X is seeing a difficult relaunch, especially in its home market.\u00a0According to a Reuters<\/em> report, the recall is not the only cause for the\u00a0Toyota\u00a0bZ4X’s poor sales performance in Japan, the first market where the electric SUV became available in May 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bZ4X is offered exclusively via leasing in Japan through Toyota’s Kinto unit, and Toyota has resumed taking leasing orders on October 26. To attract interest in the bZ4X<\/a>, the automaker has halved a one-time fee at the signing of the lease contract.<\/p>\n

When the electric SUV was introduced in May, Toyota charged a one-time application of 770,000 yen ($5,200) in addition to a 107,800 yen ($730) monthly lease for the first four years of a 10-year contract.<\/p>\n

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\"Toyota <\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture> <\/a> <\/p>\n

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Starting this week, the application fee is 385,000 yen ($2,600) while the monthly cost is down by a negligible 1,100 yen ($7.5). Customers who signed up beforehand are also eligible for a discount, said Shinya Kotera, president of Kinto.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In retrospect, we felt the price was a little too high and customers also pointed this out,” he said, adding the bZ4X is also available for corporate lease now.<\/p>\n

That said, a Toyota<\/a> veteran told Reuters<\/em> that while the discount is “painful,” it is unlikely to generate a significant increase in sales. Despite that, Kinto will still be able to turn a profit, the unnamed insider added.<\/p>\n

Toyota initially aimed to lease 5,000 bZ4X electric SUVs in the current fiscal year, but Kinto’s boss said that would be difficult to achieve following the recall<\/a> and because Japanese customers have a cautious approach to EVs. The country lacks charging infrastructure and\u00a0gasoline-electric hybrid models are more popular than EVs partly because with hybrids consumers don’t have to worry about battery life and resale value.<\/p>\n

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Things are not going well for Toyota’s first-ever mass-produced EV, the bZ4X.\u00a0Toyota recalled all bZ4X SUVs and halted production only two months after launch upon discovering that sharp turns and sudden braking could loosen a hub bolt, increasing the risk of a wheel falling off. The issue was fixed in the meantime and production restarted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}