---
title: 'The 2026 Toyota bZ Woodland Is an Electric Family SUV'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=N0ikHlOYpzo'
video_id: 'N0ikHlOYpzo'
date: 2026-08-04
duration_sec: 1292
---

# The 2026 Toyota bZ Woodland Is an Electric Family SUV

> Source: [The 2026 Toyota bZ Woodland Is an Electric Family SUV](https://youtube.com/watch?v=N0ikHlOYpzo)

## Summary

The video is a detailed review of the 2026 Toyota bZ Woodland, an electric midsize SUV/wagon developed with Subaru. The reviewer highlights its competitive pricing, strong performance, and unique quirks, concluding it is Toyota's first compelling EV.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to the bZ Woodland** [00:05] — The bZ Woodland is a fully electric midsize SUV wagon, Toyota's first competitive EV with reasonable pricing and good performance.
- **Toyota's EV history** [01:16] — Toyota was a hybrid leader but lagged in EVs; their first EV, the bZ4X, was not competitive. The bZ Woodland is a significant improvement.
- **Design and dimensions** [02:04] — The bZ Woodland is similar in size to the Subaru Outback, within an inch in height and length, and was developed with Subaru (which has its own version, the Trail Seeker).
- **Pricing and competition** [03:00] — Starting around $47,000, it's about $10k more than an Outback but competes with Chevy Blazer EV and Honda Prologue.
- **Performance** [03:29] — Has 375 horsepower, 0-60 in low 4-second range, which is sports car territory for a midsize SUV.
- **Off-road features** [04:09] — 8.4 inches of ground clearance and available all-terrain tires, but range drops to 260 miles with those tires.
- **Range drawback** [04:38] — Only 280 miles of range (260 with all-terrain tires), which is weaker than rivals that are around 300 miles.
- **Exterior quirks** [05:05] — Excessive black plastic cladding over wheel arches, which is always black regardless of color.
- **Badging quirks** [06:33] — Small Toyota logo and 'bZ' and 'Woodland' badges on opposite sides of the tailgate; the 'bZ' name may be dropped soon.
- **Interior quirks: steering wheel and gauge cluster** [07:46] — Gauge cluster is positioned to be viewed over the steering wheel, not through it, which is unusual.
- **Gear selector** [08:26] — Push and twist to select drive/reverse, push and hold for neutral, and a button for park.
- **Center console and storage** [08:54] — Wide console with dual wireless chargers, extra storage below, and a dual-opening center console.
- **Headlight washer button** [09:51] — Dedicated button for headlight washers, rare in modern cars, useful for adventure vehicles.
- **Dashboard quirks** [10:34] — Very small climate vents and no glove box, unusual for a practical car.
- **Tech and screens** [11:16] — Rearview mirror camera, gauge cluster is fine but not highly configurable, infotainment screen is simple and responsive with integrated climate controls.
- **Back seat** [12:47] — Roomy with no third row, flat floor due to electric, but center console sticks out far, diminishing center seat space. Heated seats and USB-C ports.
- **Cargo area** [13:56] — Decent size, household power port, under-floor storage, and latches to drop rear seats. No front trunk or glove box.
- **Driving impressions** [16:14] — Smooth and solid ride, faster than Outback, but not sporty. All-terrain tires soften the ride but add noise.
- **Doug score and conclusion** [20:40] — Scored 74/100, better than rivals. It's an excellent car but may be a slow seller due to EV and wagon market trends.

### Conclusion

The 2026 Toyota bZ Woodland is a compelling electric midsize SUV wagon that combines practicality, performance, and unique quirks, making it Toyota's first truly competitive EV, though its range and market timing may limit sales.

## Transcript

and it's a fully electric midsize SUV wagon thing. It's also Toyota's first really competitive electric vehicle with reasonable pricing, good performance, and some other great stuff. And today, I'm going to review the new Beey
Woodland and show you everything, including all of its quirks and including all of its quirks and features. company that's been doing this as long as mothers. They've been family-owned
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to purchase Mother's products. All right, time for the quirks and features right, time for the quirks and features of the new Toyota BZ Woodland. Like I interesting with Toyota, even though
they were a market leader in developing hybrid technology in the mid to late 90s, they haven't approached electric vehicles with the same vigor, the same market position. In fact, Toyota's first electric car came only a few years ago.
It was called the BZ4X, and it was well bad, not particularly competitive or particularly compelling, and it was not a success. Now, that car has been improved to get a little better and more competitive over the years, but
vehicle that I'm finally seeing the first electric Toyota that's pretty compelling, at least on paper. So, what is the BZ Woodland? Well, Toyota's calling it a midsize electric SUV. But
if you take a look at it, stand next to it, and really check out the design, it kind of seems more like a wagon, which makes sense because in terms of dimensions, this is almost identical to
the Subaru Outback in both height and overall length. It is within an inch in both dimensions. So, it has kind of that Subaru Outback sort of wagon crossover kind of well crossover. And that makes sense because this car was actually
developed with Subaru. Toyota owns a small stake in Subaru and they developed this car along with Subaru which has its own version of the Woodland called the Subaru Trail Seeker. My assumption is Toyota saw the Outback and said, "Hey,
have something like that in our lineup." And Subaru is thinking, "Well, the electric alternative would be nice for some people." And so it made sense to kind of join forces and create the BZ
Woodland and the Subaru Trail Seeker. Now, in terms of pricing, the BZ Now, in terms of pricing, the BZ Woodland starts around $47,000, which makes it about 10 grand more expensive base price compared to an Outback. But
that does put the Woodland in pretty close competition with other midsize electric SUVs like the Chevy Blazer EV and the Honda Prologue. They start in a pretty similar place. and the Woodland and Subaru's Trail Seeker have one
pretty big benefit over the Outback, and that's performance. This car has 375 horsepower, which is a pretty strong figure. It does 0 to 60 in the low 4se
secondond range, which is basically sports car territory. It's a lot for a sports car territory. It's a lot for a midsize SUV wagon, but it's in line with what car shoppers are starting to expect from electric vehicles. They're all
pretty fast and this one is too. Now, some other interesting things. They're pitching this as kind of a adventure loving off-road type vehicle. And so, it has 8.4 in of ground clearance, which is a little more than most midsize SUVs.
And it's even offered with allterrain tires, which this Woodland has. You can see these knobby tires. doesn't really look like it perfectly fits with the design of this car, which is very like suburb dweller, but nonetheless, they
are offered. Now, also important, two row seating here. You don't get a third row in the Woodland or the Subaru Trail Seeker, but all-wheel drive is standard, which kind of fits its ethos as an adventure vehicle. One drawback of this
car, a potential drawback, is electric range. It only has 280 mi of full electric range. And if you opt for the allterrain tires, go anywhere and do
anything, then your range drops to only 260 mi, which is a pretty weak figure compared to rivals, most of which are right around 300 and some are even above that. But anyway, next up on to the quirks. And let's start with one of the
more unusual exterior quirks, which is this piece of black plastic cladding that goes over the tires and the wheel arches. Black cladding is often put on off-roy type vehicles, but this this is pretty excessive. It goes all the way
kind of to the front of the car up to the bumper and it looks a little odd. In fact, I don't often get graycoled press cars. Typically, they want some brighter color to accentuate the lines and grab attention, but I have a feeling it was
intentional in this case to try to hide some of the impact of these bizarre black plastic fender things, which are included regardless of the color. The fender things are always black. Now, aside from this kind of unusual piece, I
actually really like the look of the Woodland and the Subaru Trail Seeker. I think they're nice, kind of attractive cars. They don't take a lot of risks, You can see this sort of hipline over the rear gives it like a little wider
stance. Makes it feel a little tougher, a little more muscular than you might expect from your typical midsize SUV. And of course, that kind of muscular look is backed up by actual power and performance, which gives the car some
credibility. Now, in the back, you have a light bar, as you can see, an LED light strip going across the entire rear end. Not surprising. pretty common on most modern vehicles. Interestingly, you have a very small Toyota logo back
increase the size of their logos, even switch away from logos to like spelling out the company name, but not here. A very small Toyota logo. And strangely enough, speaking of badging, you can see that BZ is placed here, and then
Woodland is placed over here, completely on the other side of the tailgate. Even though technically this is called the BZ Woodland, it is certainly very strange. Woodland, it is certainly very strange. Now BZ is the strangest part. Why not
just call it the Toyota Woodland? Well, a few years ago when Toyota's come out with their first electric vehicles, their plan was to have them all called BZ followed by something else. And the BZ4X
was the first one. They were going to do like a BZ2 and a BZ6. And that was not particularly wellreceived by people who thought it was just stupid. So they stopped doing it. And now you have just the regular BZ, which is what they used
to call the 4X, and now the Bezy Woodland. Hopefully they abandoned the Bezy thing entirely in the coming years. I wouldn't be surprised to see this just renamed the Woodland, and Beey dropped completely pretty soon. And next we move
inside the BZ Woodland where there are quite a few interesting quirks and features, but the most obvious is the steering wheel gauge cluster situation. pretty far back in the dashboard. And that's because it's meant to be viewed
over the steering wheel, not like through the top rim of the steering wheel like in basically every other car. Instead, you sit and look over the steering wheel rim and onto the gauge cluster, which is definitely an
interesting placement, but that's what they've done here. And there are a few other interesting quirks in here, like for example, the gear selector. You can see in the center, it's like this circle in the middle. Kind of odd. In order to
operate it, you push the whole central part down, and then you twist to the right. That goes into drive. or you twist to the left and that goes into reverse. Or you just push down and hold it and that gives you neutral. And you
access park by pressing a button with a P on it at the top of the gear selector area. Kind of an unusual thing and different from hybrid Toyotas, its own kind of weird gear selector. Now, the gear selector is mounted on a rather
wide center console as you can see. And the reason it's so wide is it has room for dual wireless cell phone chargers. You can see side by side driver and is pretty cool to have. Now, the drawback of this wide center console is
you'll lose some space, or so it seems, but actually below the whole center console, there's a second level where you have extra storage space, which is kind of a clever, nifty little idea. And speaking of storage space, the center
console of course opens. And cleverly also it opens in both directions. So the driver can open it and put stuff in or the passenger can open it the opposite way and also put stuff in. Toyota has been using this sort of dual opening
lately. It is quite an interesting thing. It almost feels like magic and little bit to the convenience. Next up, another rather unusual quirk. To the
left of the steering wheel, there is a dedicated button for washing the headlights, which you don't often see. German luxury cars had this in the '9s. car has it. You push this button and then there are washer jets hidden within
this little like fold next to the headlights. And when they go, you can see they really go and they wash the headlights very comprehensively and also a lot of the rest of the front of the car. Now, this is important because the
Woodland is an adventure vehicle and you might get your headlights muddy and so you have the ability to clean them by pushing this button in the interior. You don't often see that in a lot of cars. Now, also interesting, back inside, the
dashboard has a couple of quirks, specifically very small climate vents. You can see really tiny. They're not completely hidden like they are in Tesla models, but they're the next closest thing. Not particularly large, but
apparently just enough in order to cool or heat the interior. Also interesting in the dashboard, you do not get a glove box in this car. It is very rare to be in a modernday kind of practical average car like this and the glove box doesn't
open. This was a thing that like Italian cars had in the 80s, but it's still of other storage. The magic center console and under the whole center console area, there's extra stuff, but no glove box storage in this car, which
is definitely quirky. And next up, let's talk tech and screen. Starting with the rear view mirror camera, which I love. You can see right now it's a standard rear view mirror, but if you flip this switch, it becomes a camera, and then
you can see what's behind you without having to like look through your interior. I think it really adds to the safety of this car and other cars that have adopted this great feature. Now, the gauge cluster screen, the weird
above the steering wheel gauge cluster, I would say it's fine. It works well. It does what it's supposed to, but it's not great. It's a little configurable. It listening to or the phone or vehicle settings, but it doesn't give you like
configurability that you get in some rivals, which is a shame, but it's good enough. As for the infotainment screen, I like it a lot. Like other modern Toyota models, you get a big screen and a fairly simple one. It doesn't have a
lot of complexities to it. Just sort of your basic icons on the left. They do exactly what you'd expect. They're responsive. They're easy. Now, unlike a lot of other modern Toyotas, this infotainment screen also incorporates
all of the climate controls. And while that can be a little bit difficult in some cars, here it's pretty easy. The climate controls always live in the same spot in the bottom third of the screen and they are also pretty intuitive, easy
to figure out, easy to use, and you don't have to go deep into menus to turn stuff on. It's all basically right there on the screen. You also have the benefit of these rather cool temperature dials. You can see move the dials around, the
temperature changes in the center. It's kind of a cool look and feel for a fairly simple process in a car. And next we move on to the back seat in the BZ Woodland, which is pretty roomy. Like I mentioned before, no third row in this
car. This is the only back seat you get, but there's a lot of space back here. I have the driver seat positioned where I would sit, and I have no problem knee pretty good. Surprisingly comfortable, and it's nice to be in an all-wheel
drive car that doesn't have a big hump in the center for the drive line to go through because it's electric. And so you actually have a pretty practical space for a center passenger to get three across seated back here. Except
for the fact that the center console sticks out weirdly far. These climate vents come unusually far. It actually kind of diminishes the benefit of the legroom that's been added by removing the center hump. It's kind of weird to
most people don't use the center seat. Nonetheless, you do have those climate vents, which is nice. You also have heated seats back here, as you can see, and two USBC ports for charging devices, which is also a nice touch. As you might
armrest that includes cup holders, as back here, you don't just have that for your cup holders. In the door panel, you can see there are moldings to hold water bottles. It's not perfect for all
drinks, like a plastic drive-thru cup, but it does work pretty well for some drinks, and so you don't have to choose between the cup holders or a third passenger since you have extra cup holders in the doors, which is a nice
practical touch. And finally, we move on to the cargo area in back, which I got to say, I really, really like. For one thing, it's decent size like you might expect, and it doesn't suffer from that sort of sloping roof line teardrop
shape, which a lot of EVs have and which robs cargo space. But beyond the good size, you also have some good stuff back here. Specifically, a household power port, as you can see, which is really nice to have in a car. Really adds to
your convenience. I would prefer to see that in the passenger compartment, but it doesn't really matter as long as there is some household power port somewhere in a car like this one has. It's really, really nice. I also like
that this car has extra storage under the floor. You can see right now the put anything down there that you don't want like rolling around with the stuff in back. You also have back here little latches in order to drop the back seats,
which is a surprise in a car in this segment at this price point. Typically the seats individually, drop them down. But these latches add just like a little some large item. You don't have to walk
around to the sides. Now, it is worth pointing out one drawback of the cargo area. I'm glad I like the cargo area in back because interestingly, there isn't one up front. You open up the front compartment, the hood, and you don't get
storage there like in a lot of other EVs. Instead, it's all mechanical components like in most gas cars. So, this cargo area is really the only one you get. Kind of interesting. No front storage, no glove box. A little unusual
for a practical car like this. But anyway, with all of that in mind, now wanted to drive this car ever since they announced it. So, let's find out how it announced it. So, let's find out how it drives. The whole ride driving the BZ
Woodland. just a minute in this card and it becomes pretty clear to me exactly know, Toyota has a small stake in Subaru. Subaru Outback is very popular. They figure let's make an electric one. And so this is not just an electric
version of the Subaru Outback, but it is uh a a it's the similar theory. It's a similar ethos and similar type of car. And I got to say, I really like it. I'm
much I like a lot of things about this car. You know, I think the Outback is a really competent vehicle. And so, a vehicle in this size, in this kind of price class, in this world, this wagon SUV world, I think it's great. And and
a lot of success with a vehicle like this for a long time, and they're that." So, they get on it with Subaru. It totally makes sense. But I actually I just drove the new Outback and I got to say, this to me drives a little bit
better. The all-terrain tires, which are ridiculous on their face for this vehicle, which is not an off-roader, despite what they say, actually serve to make the ride surprisingly more uh surprisingly softer. It gives you a lot
kind of coddling with the tire. Now, the drawback is you do get more tire noise, especially on kind of coarse, rough pavement, but generally speaking, this is this is a pretty smooth car, and it definitely seems smoother and a little
bit more solidly built than something like an Outback or a Rav 4. just has a little bit more of a feeling of solidity. It's also faster. 375 strong number. This car is a quick accelerator, both from a stop and from
kind of the mid-range power punch. This car actually feels as a result like you know, the ability to accelerate pretty quickly. And you have this like relatively solidly built car. Um, again,
it it feels a little bit less flimsy than like a RAV 4 or an Outback, which steering, a security to the just general size of the car that I don't necessarily quite feel with those vehicles. In terms of drivability, I mean, steering is very
predictable, very easy. It's it's not it's not sharp. It's not quick. I don't even think this car has a sport mode. It's not it's not like a fast, exciting, point, though. Supposed to be like a point A to point B kind of simple, you
exactly what it is, and it and it does that well. But it it certainly isn't sporty or like really exciting despite having some decent power. That doesn't necessarily make it like fun or crazy or cool or whatever. It's just fast in a
straight line. Um, but it is like a very predictable, very nice kind of cruiser car with surprising levels of comfort and, you know, decent pickup. And I about this car. I'm kind of surprised um just how much I am I do like it. I think
it's nice. I think it's uh it's it drives well and like it's just a competent package. Like like so many of these cars, there's there's not really a really generate from it and there's not that much you can talk about uh driving
it. I will say the driving position is a little taller than I expected looking at look to it, but it definitely this is not like an SUV. You're not sitting up You definitely are a little bit more kind of carish uh when you're when
definitely sitting at more than a Camry or a Honda Accord. Uh but if you're I think you'll be a little bit disappointed with this car. Overall, about this. It's a good car that drives well, has good power, has a nice solid
road feel, good visibility, like it just seems like a good practical car. I don't engaging, but I don't think that's really the point. If you're into the electric, this and the Subaru version, the Trail Seeker, are both going to end
up being like competent, desirable cars. I think that this car is is is pretty impressive. I'm into it. And so, that's the new 2026 Toyota BZ Woodland. This is
a pretty competitive electric midsize SUV wagon situation. It really is with reasonable pricing and good tech and good performance. And there's a lot of great stuff. Actually, it's it's Toyota's first really compelling EV
Toyota's first really compelling EV arriving just as EV sales are falling quickly. But if you are interested in a midsize EV wagon, this is a pretty impressive offering. And now it's time to give the new Woodland a Doug score.
100, which puts the BZ Woodland here against some rivals. It's better than all of them. And honestly, it is. The Beey Woodland does an awesome job mating Subaru Outback to an EV. Finally
prior Toyota EVs have lacked, but also clearance, practicality, nice ride, and ease of maneuverability compared to larger SUVs. I think this is an excellent car, but I also think it'll be
a slow seller as both EVs and wagons haven't been huge hits. So, I suspect discounts may soon be forthcoming. That's great, cuz it's a great car.