Battery-electric Toyota Hilux could be on-sale within five years

A battery-electric Toyota Hilux on trial with mining giant BHP – replacing an electric LandCruiser 70 Series – could evolve into a production model available to the public within five years.

The vehicle in question is on trial in Port Headland, Western Australia, and is understood to be all-wheel drive with a motor on each axle, an important consideration for its potential commercial release.

It’s a much more appealing option to most Aussie ute buyers than the last electric HiLux that showed up in Australia for evaluation, the Revo, which was a rear-drive single-cab pick-up – the trial vehicle is a dual-cab chassis.

Both electric ute have been developed by Toyota in Thailand while the 70 Series BEV was developed locally with the assistance of third party contractor Vivopower. That arrangement has now ceased.

“Within the next five years the BEV HiLux has potential [to go on-sale to the public],” Toyota Australia sales, marketing and franchise operations vice president Sean Hanley told carsales.

“But it depends on how we go with the trial and the prototype and capability and performance and all the things performance, quality, reliability.

“All the things Toyota will go through before they certify any vehicle for public sale.”

If it does go on-sale within five years, that would make the commercial EV part the next-generation Hilux line-up which is expected to be revealed in 2025 and on-sale in 2026.

Reports from overseas have indicated the next Hilux will be a reskin using updated current powertrain and ladder frame chassis.

While Toyota has made a small step towards an electrified ute with the 48V mild hybrid powertrain in several high-end Hilux variants, other brands such as BYD (Shark 6), Ford (Ranger PHEV) and GWM (Cannon Alpha Hi4T) are rolling out plug-in hybrids with the capability to run meaningful distances on electric power alone.

A viable battery electric ute would take the next step beyond PHEV and no doubt aid Toyota’s ability to counteract its line-up of diesel models and hit tightening emissions limits toward the end of the decade under the New Vehicles Efficiency Standard (NVES).

The electric powertrain would also potentially have applications in other Toyota SUVs and utes, but Hanley was shy about delving too much into the technology or its applications.

“We don’t want to particularly go into a lot of detail on that car right now,” he said. “It’s a trial vehicle.”

Hanley also described the process of getting the Hilux EV to production as being “at the very start”.

“It’s a control trial as part of our memorandum of understanding with BHP.

“Eventually, in the fullness of time, of course we see this having a broad use.”

Hanley said the Hilux replaced the 70 Series as the BHP trial vehicle for a number of reasons.

“The Hilux is a big focus for us, because it is quite a big volume vehicle and it’s also quite a global vehicle, whereas the LandCruiser 70 is somewhat unique to the Australian market. Not totally unique but somewhat,” he said.

“Therefore, right now, from a resource prioritisation point of view it makes better sense at a global level to look at Hilux.

“We have not cancelled LandCruiser 70 BEV we have simply paused it, and we will re-prioritise its development over 12 months.”

Hanley also said Toyota Australia retained interest in the Revo, in a UK HiLux fuel cell electric vehicle program and continued to develop a hydrogen-fuelled HiAce van locally.

“Australia is very fortunate at the moment that we are attracting some interesting trials from the global company, and we are actively participating in them because we see these particular powertrains as future technologies that could be adapted well to the needs of Australian consumers, particularly hydrogen,” he said.

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