Electric Toyota LandCruiser and HiLux confirmed

You will be able to buy an electrified LandCruiser or HiLux no later than 2030, Toyota Australia has today confirmed.

How close to 2030 it’s not saying, nor whether you’ll be investing in a diesel hybrid, petrol hybrid, a full electric model powered by batteries or even hydrogen.

But it does mean the new Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series due this year and the next-gen HiLux, due by 2025, will be electrified.

So plenty of opportunity for speculation to continue then!

Toyota Australia confirmed electrified versions of its incredibly popular full-size SUV and top-selling workhorse during a media briefing on the new Toyota bZ4X electric SUV revealed in Shanghai yesterday and immediately confirmed for Australia.

Sales and marketing chief Sean Hanley revealed the electrified LandCruiser and HiLux as part of Toyota Australia’s commitment to offer zero and low emissions variants of all model ranges bar the high-performance GR models by 2030.

Toyota had pledged globally to achieve electrification of its model ranges by 2025 and the Australian division had gone along with that. Hanley now says “a number of” electrified models will be added by 2025.

“We plan to offer an electrified option across virtually our entire model range – including commercial vehicles – as early as 2030,” Hanley stated.

“This target includes vehicles like LandCruiser and HiLux.”

Pressed if electrification of those models meant diesel or petrol hybrids, Toyota Australia product chief Rod Ferguson said it “was not out of the question”.

“We are considering diesel hybrids, petrol hybrids,” he said.

“The model cycle and the model cadence or the ability to update powertrains also comes into the timing, but we are looking at all forms of lowering CO2 through multiple technologies.

“We are open to any of those pathways for electrifying and lowering carbon.”

Ferguson said battery-electric versions of the LandCruiser and HiLux should not be ruled out, even though their weight and lack of range would currently discourage their use.

“Battery technology is on its own technological path with what our global parent company TMC is working on overcoming hurdles around capacity, range, or energy density. They are looking at solid-state [battery tech].

“That is going to progress over time. What we see today is the mass, or packaging conditions, or constraints from the batteries, or even the materials. That will change over time.”

Toyota definitely needs to add electrified versions of its light commercial and heavy-duty SUVs as the voluntary industry-wide emissions reduction campaign managed by the FCAI shows.

While its passenger car and small SUVs benefitted enormously from widespread hybrid tech to dramatically undercut their emissions target, the pick-ups and 4x4s that Toyota sell in enormous numbers busted through their cap.

When pressed on why Toyota had changed its timing, Hanley said Toyota had always been clear that electrification for LCVs [including 4x4s] would always take longer than passenger cars.

“We never suggested we could achieve the FCAI self-regulated targets year one, but we are … committed to trying to achieve those targets by 2030,” he said.