2025 Mitsubishi Triton Ralliart could be electrified

Mitsubishi remains keen to add a flagship Ralliart off-road hero to its new sixth-generation Mitsubishi Triton ute range and it turns out the Japanese brand may have already teased just such a thing.

Earlier this month the Japanese car-maker teased an array of upcoming new models, one of which was very clearly some form of Triton that we speculated at the time to be a plug-in hybrid version given the announcement accompanying the image was related to future electrified models.

Upon closer inspection, however, it appears there could be more to the picture than we first thought, since the Triton in question is wearing big and chunky all-terrain tyres, widened wheel tracks and a higher ride height than the current Triton GSR flagship.

This can only be seen by significantly brightening the image up and cropping it down so there’s little more than the ute in the frame.

carsales asked Mitsubishi Australia for an update on the 2025 Triton Ralliart and was told the project is still yet to be officially approved, despite the fact that Mitsubishi has been teasing the idea since before the current generation Triton was revealed last year.

“Over the product lifecycle we will look at opportunities for broadening the range and that may include possibilities around Ralliart,” Mitsubishi Motors Australia CEO Shaun Westcott told us at the Triton’s national media launch in February.

“Which would give us potentially opportunities to compete on a more level platform with some of those other players.”

Westcott previously told carsales that a range-topping Triton Ralliart is something Mitsubishi Australia desperately wants to leverage “growing demand for that type of product”.

“If there’s an opportunity we’ll take it… we are interested and we are testing it,” he said in December 2023.

“We believe there is a significant amount of opportunity for this platform and for this vehicle in the future.

“I can’t talk about it too much at this time about our future strategies. Obviously it is a very competitive market.

“But we think this is a platform that allows us to build some very, very interesting opportunities.

“There are lots of interesting opportunities out there.”

Speaking generally after being asked specifically about a Raptor rival at the Triton launch, Mitsubishi Motors Australia product strategy chief Owen Thomson said that the ground-up development of the new Triton was performed to make it capable of just such a task.

“We do intend to cover the full range of product,” he said.

“Our focus [at launch] is to really focus on the core customers. What sits behind this car is resetting Triton.

“To be honest, with previous-generation Triton we focussed on certain things.

“With this car it was ‘let’s reset the base for Triton, get it really performing well and have a well-balanced product’.

“So the focus of that is actually to set it up for the future.”

The obvious benchmark for any range-topping ute is the Ford Ranger Raptor, which offers an unrivalled combination of off-road ability and outright performance thanks to its Fox suspension and twin-turbo 3.0-litre petrol V6 that pumps out 292kW/583Nm.

Even with its already-confirmed but yet to be revealed plug-in hybrid powertrain, it’s unlikely the electrified Triton – Ralliart or not – will be able to rival the Raptor for sheer performance, but it will provide a higher level of low-speed control off-road and more tractable real-world performance and driveability.

Realistically then, we expect the Ralliart Triton to be more of a rival for tough-trucks like the homegrown Nissan Navara Warrior and Toyota HiLux GR Sport, both of which offer extra off-road capability, improved road manners and – in the Toyota’s case – a bit of extra grunt.

The same goes for a plugless hybrid powertrain, which is also firming for the Triton and could even beat the PHEV version to market – according to company executives, based on its simpler packaging within the ute’s ladder-frame – while an all-electric Triton is also likely to eventuate.

Either way, it appears the Triton’s motorsport-derived suspension upgrades (as seen on the AXCR racer) will come in tandem not with the ute’s standard 150kW/470Nm 2.4-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel, but an electrified powertrain that will offer improved low-end torque delivery while lowering CO2 outputs to help meet Australia’s 2025 New Vehicle Efficiency Standard.

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