Toyota Close the Lexus LF-ZC Project and Readies a Successor Built on Gigacasting

Toyota is gearing up a whole new generation of EVs, and we’re not just talking about more horsepower, smaller drive units, or a few extra miles of range. The Japanese giant is rethinking the entire way it builds these things. The scale of this shift feels a lot like what BMW went through when it killed off older projects and bet big on the Neue Klasse, using the i3 and iX3 as stepping stones to something much more ambitious.

Not that long ago, it looked like Toyota Motor Corporation had a serious ace up its sleeve. That was supposed to be the Lexus LF-ZC, the sleek concept rolled out to the public back in 2023 and widely expected to hit the market sometime this year. But a few days ago word got out that the program won’t reach production. Given the right setup, the LF-ZC could have gone head-to-head with the Tesla Model 3 while tapping into the latest know-how from the world’s largest automaker. Hiroki Nakajima, the company’s vice president and CTO, made it clear that killing the project doesn’t mean the ideas go to waste. He said that on the very day they wrapped up development of the LF-ZC, the team was already deep in conversation about the car that follows it. The successor is meant to pick up the baton, carry over everything they learned, and take the next step without having to start from scratch.

The exact shape of the future model hasn’t been revealed yet. The LF-ZC was envisioned as a low-slung, stretched-out sedan—a body style that goes against where the mass market is headed right now, though for a Lexus portfolio play it still makes sense. The big question is whether the brand will gamble on chasing a wider audience and go for a crossover or SUV, especially now that rivals in the premium electric space are breathing down their necks. People often point to the BMW iX3 as the model that gave the Neue Klasse a solid starting point; that car has already been spotted testing as a 50 xDrive with a motor on each axle. There’s also the Mercedes-Benz GLA EQ, a compact electric SUV squarely aimed at well-heeled buyers.

Nakajima directly acknowledged that development stopped right at the stage where serious money needed to be spent on tooling and production line equipment. But a big chunk of the tech was already baked. That includes gigacasting, an EV platform built to handle ADAS systems, plus the miniaturization of components and a relentless push to cut weight. Gigacasting is something Tesla loudly championed a few years back, and Ford has been developing its own take on the idea—even for an electric pickup priced around $30,000 that could, don’t rule it out entirely, show up in Europe someday. The concept is simple: you make the front, middle, and rear sections of the body separately, then join them together, slashing complexity along the way.

The batteries deserve a special mention. The successor is likely to arrive closer to the point where next-gen chemistries—solid-state or sodium-based, for instance—start getting a real foothold in the market, even if true mass production of those cells is probably still a few years off. Another trick that was refined on the LF-ZC is automating the final stage: the idea that a fully finished car could just drive itself off the production line.