Toyota LandCruiser EV pushes out to 2025

An all-electric version of the Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series being developed by Toyota Australia for the mining industry won’t hit the road as a production vehicle until at least 2025.

Toyota is still deep in development of the 70 Series EV it first announced early in 2021 as it works to ensure it lives up to the reliability and durability expectations of one of the most rugged and capable (and oldest) off-roaders on the market.

Rather than emerging from the Japanese factory that produces diesel-powered versions of the mighty LC70, the EV version is a local conversion being undertaken by Tembo e-LV, a subsidiary of publicly listed company VivoPower.

It’s initially planned to be sold only to mining companies, and Toyota is engaging with BHP for its development.

While Tembo e-LV has been building electric versions of the LandCruiser since 2016 for mining companies around the world, it has done so without the warranty and support of the 280-strong Toyota dealer network.

To achieve that, the EV-converted 70 Series must meet the same standards of reliability and testing as any other LandCruiser – a bar that Toyota sets very high.

The company says that development work is in its infancy and the company won’t be rushing it. The emphasis is on what Toyota calls QDR: quality, durability and reliability.

“We are still in development phase, still trialing cars,” Toyota Australia’s vice-president of sales, marketing and franchise operations Sean Hanley told carsales. “It’s all about QDR.”

Hanley said the 70 Series EV is still in its “very early phase”. He warned the car is “at least” a couple of years away and that the Japanese brand would not be rushed into bringing it to market, despite increasing interest from mining companies keen to reduce their carbon footprint.

“It’s a massive investment for us and it’s a massive piece of work for us and we’re not going to allow time to market to compromise anything in relation to quality,” he said.

“We’re developing, trialing, developing, trialing, until we get it perfect – this is what Toyota does.”

While Hanley won’t rule out eventually offering the 70 Series EV to private buyers, he says “it’s a while off yet”.

“We’re trying to tailor our product to suit that [mining] environment,” said Hanley. “Once you get it right in that environment, that car… will go anywhere.”

Whenever it becomes available, Hanley is adamant the 70 Series EV will live up to the LandCruiser name.

“When we hit the market for BEV we’ll be ready, it’ll be a good product,” he said.

Meantime, order books for regular Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series vehicles, which will soon be upgraded, remain closed due to an order bank that stretches out to 2024, and are now expected to remain so for at least six months.

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