Electric Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series pushed back to 2030

A battery-electric version of the rugged Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series has been delayed again as the car-maker battles to ready the utilitarian 4x4 for life in some of the world’s harshest environments.

Toyota Australia now says the 70 Series EV won’t arrive before the end of the decade as it works on what it describes as a “very difficult” development process for the hard-core off-roader.

“It’s far more challenging than even we envisaged to be able to bring the capability, safety requirements that mining requires to these vehicles,” said Toyota Australia vice-president of sales and marketing, Sean Hanley.

He says the 70 Series EV could be on sale by 2030, but that “I wouldn’t suggest before”.

Despite promising a hybrid or electric version of every one of its volume-selling vehicles by 2030, Hanley insists speed to market is not the priority for the all-electric 70 Series.

Rather than emerging from a Toyota factory, the battery-electric 70 Series is utilising a converted vehicle supplied by external company Tembo e-LV, a subsidiary of publicly listed company VivoPower.

The current trial being conducted in conjunction with BHP in Western Australia is being led with the view to supplying LandCruiser 70 Series to mining companies that are among the biggest purchasers of the most basic version of the iconic 4x4.

And given the demands on the vehicles in such harsh and remote environments, Hanley says getting the vehicle right is critical.

“Quality and safety are the essence here,” he said.

The radical project to convert diesel-powered 70 Series models into battery-electric vehicles was announced early in 2021, and initially included plans to introduce EVs to market by around now.

It wasn’t long before Toyota kicked the anticipated on-sale date back to 2025 due to development delays – and those timelines have once again been pushed back as engineers work to overcome the challenges of high-voltage electrical components in hot climates, dust, water, sand and mines.

“We still have intent to go through with this vehicle,” insisted Hanley.

“However, the challenges of bringing a light commercial vehicle like LandCruiser 70 BEV to market are significant.”

Already there are various companies converting the 70 Series to electric for commercial applications, predominantly mining companies.

However, there’s clearly appeal with buying a vehicle endorsed by Toyota – and engineered to Toyota’s notoriously tough engineering standards – rather than one that’s been manufactured by a smaller organisation.

Having that factory backing would no doubt be appealing to mining giants such as BHP, Fortescue and Rio Tinto.

Of course, another option with the 70 Series EV is manufacturing it from the factory with all the electrical components installed.

Given the imminent arrival of strict CO2 emissions standards as part of the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES), it would make sense to explore opportunities of wholly manufacturing the vehicle rather than shipping it with a petrol engine and undergoing a costly conversion to EV.

Toyota has already signalled its intention to manufacture a more road-biased all-electric version of the LandCruiser for global markets.

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